China Doll
by Soz
Summary: After Prisoner of Azkaban, a fed-up Remus Lupin searches for escape from the wizarding world in Hong Kong's criminal underworld, led deeper and deeper into a web of violence and betrayal. Proves why Moony was never cut out to be a mobster.
1. Musings over Coffee

****

CHINA DOLL I-- MUSINGS OVER COFFEE  
  
Remus was through.   


He was through with all of it, the constant bickering the inbred arrogance, the unstoppable prejudice. He had been pushed to his limit and steadfastly refused to be pushed any further.   
He was through with the wizarding world.   


Reciting this firmly to himself in his head, Remus slowly approached the main desk of Atlas Travel "we carry a world of flights on our shoulders!" His resolve, which had stood so firmly on the train from Hogsmeade to London, was slowly beginning to crumble as a formidable woman in an Atlas travel uniform fixed him with a steel glare. He was not even quite sure how Muggle travel worked...   


"Can I help you?" she snapped mechanically, pounding her fingers on a plastic object he vaguely recognized as a "coputer" or something of the sort...  


"Ah... yes," he said, transfixed by her threatening stare. "Do you have any flights that leave today for under seventy... pounds?" The word felt unfamiliar on his tongue, but he had sworn off Knuts and sickles forever. Remus had to learn Muggle money eventually.   
She gave him a disapproving look as if silently commenting on how anyone who wanted a flight for less than seventy pounds was not worth much. "You should consider booking your trips in advance, sir," she sneered, pounding away on the coputer. "There's one flight."   


"How much--" Remus began.   


"69.99," she squinted at him through her tinted glasses. "We're having specials on flights to Asia."   
  
"Asia?" He blinked, rather taken aback.   
  
"That's what I said," she snapped. "The flight is to Hong Kong."   
  
Remus hesitated for a moment, silently weighing the pros and cons, but then he realized what he had come here for... escape. Hong Kong seemed as likely a place as any. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the thin crisp bills, already missing the cool feel of bronze, silver, and gold. "I'll take it," he muttered, before his rationality kicked in and he would be forced to reconsider. For better of for worse, he had no way of knowing... at least it would be interesting.   
  
  
----  
  
  
To the unenlightened, coffee was somewhat highly regarded for a rather unappetizing murky dark brownish liquid. But for those that saw the true path, coffee was pure magic-- a twingling fire that expanded through the central chest cavity, biting all who lurked nearby with its white hot zings of flame, causing such a complete and total singular buzz that for one brief instant, one tiny speck in the great web of time, one little breath in the turning of the great wheel of life-- you were filled with the immortal spirit of the Energizer Bunny, the bitter sweet lust to keep going and going and going... 

----

  
Remus's mind was far from its transcendental benefits as he half-heartily stared at his coffee; to be completely exact, in a literal and not at all euphemistic sense, he was trying to figure out the best way to drown himself in it. Alas, for Remus, not the coffee, which would rather not have its perfectly good morning ruined by suddenly means of the world's most unusual suicide, the cup was a good 3 inches across and his head a standard 18.4 centimeters, which would allow the completion of this most unusual suicide an award such as the likes of immortality, not was Remus was lusting over at the moment. Sighing, he picked up a guidebook, which was perfectly delighted at the prospect of being in use. Two-eighths through the first sentence, Remus realized it was completely in Chinese. Though Remus knew it not, the sentence was about how fewer than five percent of the general population spoke fluent English. It was going to be a very long day. He took a swig of coffee. 

----

  
Sirius had never liked coffee, and hence coffee, being a strangely emphatic liquid, had never really liked him-- always making itself extra bitter for his consumption or a few degrees below lukewarm when he took a sip. But now, after twelve years of prison food, Sirius could have cleaned out every Starbucks chain in Madrid-- in the world, which alarmingly enough was now an option, for unbeknownst to any of our protagonists and totally irrelevant to the plot of this story, a small painstakingly disguised wing of Lord Voldemort's empire had attacked the task of world domination in a whole new light... by addicting the entire world population to mocha lattes. For being under funded and totally irrational, the tiny Seattle based coffee shop was doing quite well. However, all of this was far from Sirius's mind as he took a swig of coffee. 

----

With a shock, the coffee felt itself becoming diluted. Vix crushed the small carton of marva-maid half 'n' half vienna-cream-flavoured milk. What was Vienna cream anyway? Irish cream she knew Vienna sausages yeah-- but the two combined seemed a little too specialized for anything but the likes of a garbage disposal. Not feeling very garbage-disposal-ly at the moment, she set in aside and in a sudden subconscious leap of thought, decided to reflect on all recent developments in the great wheel Taoists would call her life. A sudden lack of any such developments made her release it was 3:19 in the morning. More out necessity than any aesthetic pleasure, she took a swig of coffee. 

----

Black like his coffee.   
  
Black like his prowler.   
  
Black like his leather.   
  
Black like his soul.   
  
Orien blended into the night so completely that even a flash of lightening would take a job to illuminate him. He pulled himself up so tightly against the wall that he became one with the brick, stone still. A shower of gravel from the roof above-- a hand touched his shoulder.   
  
She nodded at him, and whatever this sign may portend, it portended more to him than it portends to the readers present ignorance.   
  
Orien ran on the gravel, leaping over a dumpster, landing with an inaudible crunch. He pulled out his gun (black), from his indispensable (black) leather jacket.   
  
The man walking on the street fell in the night, a heathen red staining its immortal black, pierced by a bullet from an assailant he didn't even know he had. The prince of cats slipped into the abyss of city night. 

----

  
Nsia had the prowler ready by the time he got back. She turned on the ignition as he leapt in the roof, Bond style. The corvette looked out of place in the dark alley, if you even noticed it-- the blackness indistinguishable from the night around them. 3:19 AM read the radio clock, in angry green fluorescent glory. 3 AM was the hour when anything was possible, a rift in the fabric of time when the all-nighters and early worms coexisted, an hour so obscure and underrepresented that everything important was fabricated in its realm. 3 AM brought out the poet in Nsia. She turned the ignition, the black car roared to like, her black hair streaming into the black night, the prince of cats's lips kissing her black neck. 

----

On the sweet serenades of "California Dreaming' " the clock painstakingly progressed its digital tabulator to 3:19 AM, a small step towards habitability. The diner embraced the small step for mankind for the prospect of being customered seemed, literally, more likely by the second. The diner was really a grubby place its only modern conveyance a gleaming digital clock daring to blink out the heinous time in angry red. Everything else was 50s retro, retro-ed so convincingly that it looked as if had been installed in the 50s, and aged tremendously since then. No great Parisian interior decorator could have set foot in the brilliantly named "24 Hour Diner" without automatically suffering spontaneous combustion. The colour scheme or lack thereof, varied shades of brown ranging from an "alternating speckled rawhide and burnt sienna" counter, to the "chocolate moose" ceiling tiles. 

----

The arrival of 3:19 warranted no blanging bells in Isaac's apartment, maybe all the attention it got was a quick snore from Isaac, who, like the majority of the population, spend 3: 19 in bed. Nothing got much attention in Isaac's place of residence, so there was no need for 3: 19 to feel left out. His floor was littered with clothes, various turtlenecks and underwear, books ranging from: The space-time Continuum: Opposing Viewpoints, to the best thing to come out of Ancient Rome, The Art of Love. A few months ago, he had put up a movie poster for Casablanca, a desperate move to hole onto American culture, but, as if these foreign walls rejected America itself, the poster had almost fallen off. If one could see through the darkness, they could tell his room DID have a colour scheme-- Blue, the cerulean blue carpeting, baby blue paint, and not-quite greenish-blue aquarium (home to three fish-- Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail) all which have resuscitated out spontaneous combusted Parisian Fashion designer. 

---

  
Sirius would have put him out of his mind, faculties, and other general whatnot involved in sustaining life. His room-- or rather subway station-- consisted of a bench, serving as a bed, whose only sheet was a ragged cloak trailing onto the floor, which's color will now remain a mystery due to the excessive piles of magazines, fliers, and dead rodents that made up the litter that was as much a part of city life as the skyscrapers. An ancient clock hung from the decrepit cement ceiling was stopped permanently at 3:19 AM thanks to the large hippogriff snacking on the live electrical wires that a lazy builder had forgotten to cover to cement. Color scheme was certainly not an issue. 

----

Colour scheme was not Remus's forte. Browny-Orangish carpet and a faded red velvet blanket half-heartedly spread halfway across his bed, whose mattress had an alarming frequency of loose springs. With this wonderful sleeping condition, one may choose to wonder why Remus was not occupying his bed when 3:19 arrived. The one remarkable thing about Remus's room was its walls. They could have been covered in original artwork; but instead, painstakingly pasted with glow in the dark stars, a moonless night sky. 

----

Orien's room was black. Four Chinese scrolls lay on his wall, one for each season, winter, spring, summer, fall. Next to the scrolls was a black stereo, which seemed to grow out of the black painted wall and into the black covered bed. He had a hardwood floor, which along with the green potted plant in the corner was the only colour in the room. The plant was Nsia's influence; she was Orien's colour. 

----

Vix had always thought that you could tell the most about people by who an what they had surrounded themselves with, it was an unconscious projection of the soul.   
  
  
----  
  
  
The phone rang.   
  
He turned over.   
  
The phone rang again.   
  
A light turned on.   
  
His hand flopped onto the dresser and fumbled for the cause of the noise.   
  
A third ring.   
  
He got it, picked up the phone and pulled it to the sheets.   
  
"Hello?" He mumbled the murmur a mixture of half-baked sleep and half-wakened sentience.   
  
"Isaac," it was Jonathan- his uncle, his boss, brisk businesslike very much awake, but Jonathan had paused uncharacteristically, let time pass by. Isaac heard him take a breath.   
  
"Uncle Jonathan," he said, for the first time wondering why he was calling at 3:19 in the morning. "What is it?"  
  
There was another pause; "Your Uncle Scott is dead."  
  
A thousand feelings in one heartbeat, all met by the inevitable denial, it had not sunk in yet, and he was alive still. He tried to say a thousand words, but none came out, none came close to expressing anything. Isaac managed three letters, "How..."  
  
"Shot to death, in an alley, Naoto." More surefooted now Jonathan knew the facts, he could cope worth the facts.   
  
"I'm sorry," Isaac said, only because it was the first thing that came to his mind, the logical cliche to choke out on autopilot. Scott was Jonathan's brother, imagine what he must have been going through.   
  
"It's not your fault, Isaac." He was gruff, more so than usual. "I'm going to ask you a favor, I know its 4 AM and I know you're in shock, but I really need your help."   
  
Jonathan never made justification for what he did never any apology, he just did it. It was hard to have feelings in their line of work; this instead of reassuring him only serviced to worry Isaac more. "Whatever you need," he said, feeling Jonathan's anxiety.   
  
"Come in to my office, now." He hesitated for the briefest of seconds, "We have allot to talk about." With a click, the phone went dead.   
  
  
----  
  
  
"Coffee?"   
  
"No. Had enough of that," Remus Lupin muttered as his head fell onto the annoyingly brown countertop. 24 hour diner, not a very creative name but blatantly functional.   
  
The waitress tipped her pot away from his lolling head. "You look like you could use some caffeine, mister." The mister was perfect, perfectly cliche. The woman had her act down to a tee, mirroring the exact smoky waitress voice used in all Muggle movies, either she was an actress or a walking stereotype.   
  
"No... I'll have... tang," He said, vaguely remembering the drink from his one other experience in a Muggle restaurant. Talk about random, but it was four in the morning, his right to make sense could be put on hold.   
  
She didn't bat an eyelash, "One tang coming up."   
  
Two seconds later, give or take a few due to sleep loss, the disgusting powdered water was pressed into his face, he'd forgotten how much he hated tang.   
  
"I really hate tang," she said in her obviously fake waitress voice of hers, "My dad used to stuff the stuff down my throat when I was little, said it was good for me."  
  
Remus suppressed a yawn, "I didn't know you could get tang in Hong Kong-" he released how dumb that was when it had finally made its way out of his mouth. Damn.   
  
"It is four AM, mister, I'll cut you some slack," there was a long hold-your-breath pause as he pretended to sip his tang. "So..." She wrung the rag out on the table, "When's your birthday?"  
  
"January 28th... why?" Any excuse to leave the tang was welcome.   
  
"I don't know you," she gave him a friendly grin as she gave the bar another wipe, "I wanna learn some stuff."   
  
"Alright," he tapped his fingers, "When's yours?"   
  
"August 14. Do you have any pets?"  
  
He began to wake up in spite of himself, "No, do you have any pets?"   
  
"I have a cat and think of your own questions."   
  
"What's your favorite colour?"   
  
"Purple. What do you do on Saturday morning?"   
  
"Sleep. Do you listen to music?"  
  
"All the time. What's your favorite movie?"  
  
He groped around futile for the title of a Muggle movie, "Er... Silence of the Lambs. Do-"   
  
She was giving him one of those uniquely female looks, "that's disgusting. Continue."   
  
Remus did not really understand what she was talking about but he frankly did not care, "There goes the mood, all your fault," he smiled as he picked up his tang again.   
  
"What kind of underwear do you wear?"  
  
Remus leaned over towards her, suddenly feeling as if he was possessed by Sirius "I don't."  
  
She started to laugh, like a bell, laughter so light he knew for sure that the smoky voice was an act.  
  
He sat back, "I'm just kidding, you know that right?"   
  
"Sure," she giggled, "sure. Ok here's a serious one-What's your greatest wish in all the world?" Ending masterfully as she set her rag down.   
  
"To get rid of my tang," He could feel her breath on his forehead, smell her sticky scent of perfume mixed with coffee. "Yours?"   
  
She stood up, instantly intrigued in the bar, "I don't know, ask me later."   
Remus knew his audience was over, staring at her, the short Chinese waitress with the perfect English and the fake voice, retreating into the grubby overly-retro kitchen he began to grasp that he had just had one of the most bizarre conversations of his life. The tang was gone. Remus left 5 pounds and walked out of the diner.   
  
  
----  
  
  
Vix was half-sorry to see him leave. As she cleared away the half-eaten pancakes, he has ordered she tried to absorb every detail just in case she never saw him again. He was obviously a foreigner-- not American, he didn't have the accent, maybe he was from one of those big British companies that were beginning to move in-but on the other hand, he didn't seem the corporate type. No, defiantly not, so self-preserving CEO would walk into the diner in the first place, but not wearing a striped scarf, blue velvet jacket and ratty sneakers. So far, the only definite thing she could decide on was that he could not match... why had she talked to him anyway? There was something about him... something that she couldn't quite put her finger on... Vix released she was confusing herself, she gave a half-hearted swipe at the already clean bar. "He's probably just a tourist," she said aloud.   
  
  
----  
  
  
"You did it?" The old man's head was turned away from his one man audience as he sat in a rolling chair, staring out a plate glass window that overlooked the city, still dark with the vestiges of late night slumber. 

Orien bowed his head, even from the back, Naoto commanded respect "Yes."

The old man spun his chair around until his eyes were locked dead straight with Orien's; "Will they trace it?"   
  
"No."  
  
Su Naoto was a man of power, every inch of his tiny withered frame radiated it, dynamically so that it was impossible to turn your eyes away from everything but him, the 65 year old bomb, ticking-ticking, calculating, measuring for his next move, his next quarry to crush. Though no more than five and a half feet tall, Naoto was the very embodiment of a hunter. If Naoto was a hunter, than Orien was his hound. Brushing his silver hair out of his eyes, the old man turned to Orien, "What do you think of Sho Seiji?" 

Orien could have been taken aback, but Naoto never said anything idly, "He's a rich fool."   
  
"He made 10 billion American dollars in three years, is that the work of a fool?" Naoto's voice sounded innocent, but he was playing a devils advocate.   
  
"Money is not the measure of all things. He is a rich fool." The anger simmering just beneath the surface of Orien's voice, dangerous, gave the feeling that it would burst soon through.   
  
"If he is a fool, he can be manipulated to our advantage." Naoto smiled, or gave an attempt, happiness, even superficially, being too much a trial.   
  
"He is too friendly toward foreigners, no. Seiji is a mistake." Orien had to work to keep the tone of his voice level.   
  
"The problem with you, Orien, is that you are too angry. You let it cloud your judgement." Naoto announced this as if he was greeting him good morning. "You cannot see long term benefit."  
  
"Which is? Foreign domination? Whimsy winning out?" Not being able to keep still, Orien paced across the room with a cat's grace, ready to claw the walls if denied any further.   
  
"10 billion dollars," Orien stopped moving, and looked up, comprehending. Naoto knew he had won. Naoto always won. "Seiji wants to marry my daughter, your cousin. As you know this is no longer the eighteenth century and I cannot conveniently order her to marry, but I may strongly encourage obedience."   
  
"Why is he interested in Vix?"  
  
"She's a pretty girl, for once, my nephew, think. Who would not want the protection of the Su family, Orien? Seiji is finally taking a side and I am not going to give him any reason to think he has made the wrong choice. The man is 28, but he has tremendous influence, and political weight. 10 million dollars in the family is not great trial either. When Seiji dies, the money will either be left to his wife, or children both which tremendously benefit us."   
  
"What do you want me to do?" Orien was a man of action, and Naoto knew this.   
  
"Talk to Vix, make her understand the benefits, etceteras. Strongly encourage, Orien. I have full faith in you."   
  
He bowed his head, and left the room, the door slamming behind him, locking in the silence in the office behind.


	2. Gunpoint

****

CHINA DOLL II-- GUNPOINT  
  
He sat in Flitwick's office, his hands in his lap as he stared blankly around the room at the mess of essays waiting to be graded. With a small twinge, he remembered the last time he had been in here, almost 17 years ago, submitting himself to a telling off from the blustering old Flitwick. Last time too, he had felt like the world was coming to a very rapid end, though detention in the hospital wing was nothing compared to what was waiting for him on the other side of the large oaken door, a door unbreakable, its latch a lock on his death. He only wished it was as unbreachable from the outside, to keep them away...  
  
With a sickening scrape, the door slid open.   
  
A wave of intense cold hit him as the dementor glided into the room, its black cloak rustling listlessly on the stone floor, the very stench of death hovering around it like aura. His legs moved when his mind could not and threw him as far away from it as possible, but it was too late... he fell to his knees...  
  
_...Sirius..._ an echo, an echo of a voice he had known so well...  
  
The door slammed shut, and the dead bolt slid into place, the single scrape of metal upon metal amplified by his own panicked mind.   
  
_...Sirius... Do take care of yourself... Peter is somewhere safe..._  
  
There was no hope, there had never been any hope... for any of them James, Lily... Aiden... and now it was his turn...  
  
_...Take care of yourself, Sirius... We'll see you tomorrow..._  
  
The dementor towered over him, he could hear its rattling breath, feel it suck out his innermost self...  
  
_...of course the charm will work... Happy Halloween..._  
  
He was groveling before it on his hands and knees, powerless to resist, powerless to even move, even breathe as it bent down, a stench of decay filling his whole being. He wanted to scream, but his mouth wouldn't work right-- the dementor reached up, gripping its hood, and it pulled it back. Peter Pettigrew sneered at him... laughing... laughing...  
  
"Sirius!"   
  
Sirius opened his eyes with a start... and it all fell away, Flitwick's office, James's voice, Pettigrew... replaced by a deserted subway station in Madrid. His back hurt...  
  
"Sirius!"   
  
He glanced up, half-surprised to be staring into the clear blue eyes of Albus Dumbledore.  
  
  
----  
  
  
Vix was still polishing the bar when the door swung open with a rickety creak. Looking up, she suddenly had the undeniable impulse to run for cover. Orien had come for a visit.   
  
Vix had known Orien since they were little more than babies, and understandably so. He was her brother. He was no longer the little boy who used pull her braids and steal her dolls. With his black leather jacket and crown of spikes, Orien looked more the type to steal her dolls and systematically execute them. She cringed inwardly at the bulge in his jacket pocket. With a man like Su Naoto as her father, Vix had been weaned on violence, and had been fighting ever since to get the bitter taste from her mouth. The fact that Orien had come to visit her armed did nothing to warm his welcome.   
  
"Vix," Orien said, his face as unreadable as James Joyce.   
  
"Orien," she said sarcastically, mimicking his intense glare.  
  
He ignored her and sat down on one of the barstools, simply staring up at her. Finding his silence unnerving, Vix cleared her throat. "Do you want some coffee--" she stopped suddenly, cursing herself. Orien saw coffee as American, hence foreign, hence evil.   
  
He stared at her coldly for a few seconds before replying in Cantonese, "No."   
  
Vix stared at him for a few seconds before tuning back to the bar. "Why are you here?" she replied in English.   
  
"You are going to get married," he said, once again in Chinese.   
  
Vix gave a sudden snort, "What?"   
  
In a movement so quick it took her completely by surprise, Orien reached out and grabbed her wrist-- hard. "Sho Seiji has asked our father for your hand in marriage. You will not disappoint him."   
  
Vix managed to smile as she pried his fingers off her arm, "I'm afraid no one is getting my hand in marriage, Orien. Let alone Sho Seiji who I have never heard of in my life."   
  
"He made 10 billion dollars in two years," Orien said rapidly. "He would make a good husband."   
  
"And I'm sure you're an expert on what makes a good husband," Vix smirked at his arcane reasoning. "I'm sure with 10 billion in the bank Father won't be able to resist. All he has to do is make sure its willed to me and make it look like an accident."   
  
Orien's eyes narrowed and she could see his trademark fury welling up beneath his skin, and oozing onto his speech, the sound of it almost tangible when he next spoke. "Su Naoto is a man of honor."   
  
Vix rolled her eyes, trying desperately to ignore her brother's fury. "Su Naoto is a man of honor until money is involved... or Jonathan Whimsy," she added as an afterthought.   
  
Vix could see Orien wrestling with his inner demons, fighting to keep his voice level. "You will marry Sho Seiji."   
  
"In another lifetime," Vix smiled sweetly; knowing it would only fuel his anger. "Get out Orien, if you have nothing constructive to say. I have to work."   
  
Without another word, Orien stood up and walked out of the grubby diner. Vix turned back to the bar, her head suddenly filled with more worries than she let on.  
  
  
----  
  
  
Isaac also was worried. Though usually nothing short of Armageddon could have gotten him out of bed at five in the morning, here he was running towards his Uncle's office. However, this miracle was far from his sphere of thought as Hong Kong raced past him. His Uncle Scott was dead... that he could accept. Isaac had never been close to Scott, in fact he had barely known him, but the fact that he head been murdered by Su Naoto stuck in his gut. If Naoto was on the move, he had allot more to fear to digest than the daily portion. Isaac just hoped that Uncle Jonathan could handle Naoto, on no means could they afford to loose their hold on the shipping industry--  
  
Suddenly all went black. Isaac never knew what hit him.   
  
  
----  
  
  
Remus was trapped, hovering between the street corner and the diner. He wanted to go back, though the motivation seemed to spring from a well he couldn't see. But her dismissal had been final, the memory so crisp and starch in his mind he was afraid to soil it with another conversation. So he sat, suspended in limbo on the curb, amazed and disgusted at his own indecision.   
  
With a slight sigh, he turned away from the restaurant and began to amble aimlessly down a narrow alley adjoining it. Its darkness was reflecting the darkness of his own introspection. Hong Kong had not been a good idea, he had cut himself adrift in a world where the money, customs, language were strange. Everything he had always taken for granted now seemed to be the greatest hurdle. But then again, hadn't escape been his aim?   
  
Escape. Escape from the constant cycle of lies, betrayal and discovery. Then came the inevitable conclusion. No matter how much he strived to "prove" himself... how many people he tried to help, one false word and Remus Lupin was transformed into the monster under the bed. It all fell apart because of... what? One night every month? Did that make him any less of a human? Yet, as he leaned against the cold alley wall, he knew the answer. Yes. Yes... It completely negated any trace of his humanity, made him as much of a beast as the beetle crawling on his shoe. He was lying to walk the streets, trying to pass himself off as one of them. His whole life was built on lies. He was betrayed, by the very blood that coursed through his veins.   
  
"Uhhh!"   
  
Remus opened his eyes, unaware that he had even closed them and turned around. A figure in black was punching another steadily; they were already on their knees and would not last long, if even that.   
  
"Hey!" he yelled before releasing it, "Hey!"  
  
The black figure turned up, its face almost totally obscured by the alley's darkness. Remus suddenly regretted he had even opened his mouth but it was too late now to back down, the challenge had been issued. The man in black left his victim lying against the brick wall curled up in a fetal position, still whimpering mournfully. Remus took a step forward, feeling his throat grow dry as his adversary stepped into the light. He was Asian, with his black hair gelled into spikes and a black leather jacket that concealed any hidden weapons; of which, Remus was sure he had a number of. The man bared his teeth like a dog and gave a low growl in unmistakable Chinese. Remus inched backward a step as the man lunged....   
  
...and struck home, his fist crashing into Remus's shoulder. He tried to step backwards again, but the attacker was an animal, punching him hard in the solar plexus. Remus fell to his knees with a grunt as the man beat him about the face with his fists. Finally waking up enough to move, Remus reached blindly and gripped his attacker's forearm, holding it still, but the man wrenched forward, biting Remus's knuckles.   
  
Remus had never been much of a fighter, but the bite called upon the only thing in him that knew about dog eats dog, the law of the wild. He gave into the wolf. With a snarl that rivaled his opponent's, Remus jammed his fist up into the roof of his attacker's mouth, who let go with a wrench. Heedless of the blood trickling down his arm, Remus kept his hold on the man's forearm, and twisted it hard. He was rewarded with a small grown from his attacker, who was trashing wildly. Kicking him coldly to his knees, Remus grabbed the man's other arm and pushed him none too gently to the wall.   
  
The man glared up at him defiantly before spitting put a mouthful of blood. "Whimsy," he hissed though the entrenching darkness. The word meant nothing to Remus, who stood in complete quiet trembling with fury, more at himself than at the snarling man before him. It had been years since he had... lost control like that. A small shiver ran through his frame, remembering the last time.   
  
"Help me," Remus said finally, pushing the memory aside. He gestured to the limp body on the other side of the alley. "We're going to save a life."   
  
  
----  
  
  
It is no coincidence that you have never heard the phrase, "As pleasant as spilled coffee."   
  
Vix was pouring a customer's coffee when she dropped the pot in surprise, spilling scalding hot liquid over the immaculate bar and grubby tile floor. Her early morning customer had returned. This time, he was not ordering tang. He had a body in his arms... a body whose feet were being carried by none other than Orien. The man pushed through the diner, who took in his bleeding arm, torn clothing and black eye and scooted a few feet away. Without a second glance at them, the man heaved the body onto the countertop, with Orien's help... right on top of the spilled coffee. Vix stared, simply shell-shocked from the man... to Orien... to the body... and back again. Her one-time customer looked up and met her gaze, his gray eyes tired and lined, and a bruise already blossoming around one. "Do you have a fellytone?"   
  
"A what?" Vix said, feeling a wave of confusion mingle with her initial horror.   
  
"A..." the man looked rather embarrassed," place to... call... the doctor."  
  
"Um... yes," she stammered, her gaze flitting rather instinctively to Orien, who was staring at the man with a murderous glint in his eye. She couldn't leave them alone, not with Orien's record. "Does anyone have a cell phone?" Vix raised her voice to address the diner.   
  
"I'll call--" a pale-faced woman in the corner said, raising her hand like a schoolgirl.   
  
Vix nodded and in one swift movement, knocked all the china off the bar, neither moving nor caring when it broke into a million different pieces, she had wanted to do that for years. With the gray-eyed man's help, she pulled the unconscious body into a more stable position. Passed out and battered, it was a young man who couldn't have been more than twenty-five. His bright blond hair now matted and stained with blood.   
  
"He's still alive," her customer said huskily, pulling off his awful blue jacket. "I found him in the alley..." as he trailed off, his eyes flickered ever so briefly to Orien.   
  
Vix could have guessed what happened. It had happened enough times before. "What did you do?" she snapped to Orien, who fixed her with his bone-breaking stare almost immediately.   
  
"He was one of Whimsy's," Orien shrugged nonchalantly, as if it were some sort of excuse.   
  
"Do you know how this is going to reflect on me personally? On my business?" Vix hissed, raging fury filling her as her heart rate raced.   
  
"If you marry Seiji it would be of no consequence," Orien replied his voice so low it was almost inaudible.   
  
"Listen to me!" Vix growled in frustration, aware of the diner's prying eyes now focused singly on the two of them, lapping up their every word with eager tongues. "I am not marrying Seiji, not now, not ever! I'm already getting married." It seemed like a plausible excuse.   
  
Orien's face remained as impassive as ever, "To who?"   
  
Vix was frozen for a second, but then she reached out and randomly grabbed her mysterious customer's shoulder, who was staring from sibling to sibling in complete confusion. Pity she wouldn't make it any easier for him. "Orien, I would like you to meet my fiancé." The man opened his mouth, as if to say something, or protest, but somehow he caught her urgency and managed to twist it into something resembling a guilty grin. Vix breathed a sigh of relief and lowered her eyes to where Orien's victim lay, sprawled across the bar.   
  
A slight but distinct click, followed by a collective gasp brought them up again. Orien was holding his gun and aiming straight at her fiancé. The safety was off. "I can take care of that," he sneered in English.   
  
Orien heard a click behind him, and felt something metal press into the side of his head. He didn't even have to turn to know it was the barrel of a gun. "Try..." a voice whispered in his ear. "Just try..."


	3. Moony and Padfoot

****

China Doll III-- Moony and Padfoot  
  
  
"Try... just try..." Sirius had to admit he had always had a flair for melodrama, and the look on Remus's face, not to mention the man he was holding at "gunpoint" made the trip to Hong Kong by Dumbledore's Portkey worth the motion sickness. All it had taken was a Locatés Charm to find Remus, too many James Bond movies, and a simple illusion on his fork to make it look like a gun. Suddenly he had in his hands, an entrance no one would ever forget. The thug's gun fell to the floor with a clatter. "Good," Sirius sneered, withdrawing the fork from the man's temple. "Now I want you to walk over and put your hands on that wall. No quick movements," he added sharply.   
  
"Do you have any identification?" A pale woman in a waitress's uniform said from behind the counter, who looked as if she had just had the shock of her life.   
  
Sirius paused for a moment, trying to disguise his rapid fabrication. "I can't disclose that information." He said, putting the fork into the pocket of his robes.   
  
"Why?" she asked getting braver, now that the shock of his entrance was wearing off.   
  
"We work for a very secret organization," turning, Sirius saw Remus looking at the woman earnestly. Though he had often promised to curse himself when he started referring to things as "the good old days"; Sirius felt a twinge of nostalgia. It was Moony and Padfoot once more...  
  
"You know him?" the woman gestured at Sirius, confusion audible in her voice.   
  
"That's classified. I'm sorry," Sirius said, smirking at Remus, who had Boy Scout written all over his face.   
  
The waitress glanced from one to the other before turning to the diner, "Alright, we're closed. All of you get out." There was a collective moan from the customers, who had never probably seen something so interesting in their lives and were far from eager to return to hum-drum normality. However, the tone of her voice was so firm, and her anger so commanding that they obliged, all filing out in one disappointed mob. "You three stay," she said, gesturing to Sirius, Remus, and the thug all clustered around the bar as she walked over to the door and pulled the lock closed. "No one is leaving until I know what's going on."   
  
"That's classified," Sirius said swiftly.   
  
The woman gave him a disgusted look, "You must really think I'm stupid."   
  
Sirius opened his mouth to say something equally snide, but Remus cut him off. "We're sorry."   
  
She turned to him, her black eyes blazing, "What is going on?"   
  
Remus shook his head slowly, "I wish I knew... why are you here?" He turned to Sirius, his gray eyes looking even more tired than when he had seen him last. "No one knows I came."   
  
Sirius threw a quick glance at the waitress and the thug and decided to answer him sincerely. Memories could always be modified. "Dumbledore knew. He sent me."   
  
Remus heaved a heavy sigh, "Why? Did Snape--"   
  
"God, no," Sirius held up his hand. "It had nothing to do with that prig."  
  
"Then what?" Remus said, gently rubbing his temples. "I just want to be left alone. Dumbledore knows that."   
  
Sirius put on a mocking face, the weight of his message tainted by his mocking tone. "You can't hide forever."   
  
"I don't care."   
  
"Remus..." Sirius said, making the trip to the bar in one long stride. He caught Remus by the shoulders, and pulled him up so they were staring each other in the eyes. "They need you."   
  
"They didn't need me a week ago," Remus said tonelessly.   
  
"Don't be a prig, Remus," Sirius snorted, gripping him tightly. "At least hear me out."   
  
Softly Remus shook his head and wrenching away from Sirius, he buried his face in his hands.   
  
"Can we be alone..." Sirius ventured glancing rapidly at the waitress and the thug, who were both standing in rapt attention.   
  
"Yes," the woman began, intuitively sensing his sincerity. "There's a back room. We'll go." Without another word, she left, the thug following her like a lapdog.   
  
"Remus," Sirius knelt down slowly feeling like he was consoling a small child.   
  
"Go away-" Remus averted his gaze, shaking his head softly. "You don't understand."   
  
"You're right," Sirius said, pulling up the barstool next to Remus. "I could never begin to understand..." He stopped, suddenly remembering the last time those words had been said to Remus-- who had said them to Remus. It was an echo of twenty years before.   
  
Remus must have been remembering the same thing, for a faint smile flickered across his face. "He was a good friend, Sirius," he said softly.   
  
"Yes," Sirius looked down at the bar, tracing its marbleized patterns with his fingertips as he tried to suppress the memory.   
  
"I remember the night... that Halloween. It was the full moon... so I wasn't told. I saw it in the Prophet that morning. How Harry had defeated Voldemort... and how you had... killed them..." Remus said in a husky voice, still staring at the wall. "I had lost all of you in one night... I wanted to die too. The last of the Marauders... we used to joke about that, guess who's be left...and when it came, I though it was so ironic, I lived... when I'm not even a person-"   
  
"Look at Wormtail, Remus," Sirius said firmly, leaning forward. "Look at the filth he turned out to be."   
  
"But even you suspected me of being the spy, before..." he broke off, his voice tense with emotion. "You suspected me, because of what I am, even after eleven years." Remus turned, and for the first time, looked Sirius straight in the eye. "No one trust you. No one... its just... I'm sorry," he stammered, dropping his gaze. "I shouldn't have..."   
  
"No," Sirius said stiffly. "No, you should. You're right. I was wrong."   
  
Remus shook his head once again, eyes still on the bar.   
  
Sirius reached out across the unbreachable foot of countertop and gripped Remus's arm. "I would trust you with my life, Moony."   
  
"You're just saying that," Remus muttered, still avoiding his gaze.   
  
"You know that's not true," Sirius asserted, squeezing his hand once more. Their eyes met for the briefest of second and when Remus looked away, his face was traced with the ghost of a smile. "Now can I tell you what Dumbledore wanted?" Sirius said with a sprinkling of humor.   
  
"You're relentless, you know that," Remus rolled his eyes weakly.   
  
Sirius considered this for a few seconds, "I've been called worse."   
  
"Ach! Go ahead," Remus growled. "There's no stopping you."   
  
"He gave me this-"   
  
"Uhhh!" Sirius withdrew his hands from the pocket of his roes with a start as he and Remus turned as one to the countertop where a very battered body was opening its eyes. "...He can't loose..."  
  
"Don't sit up," Remus said suddenly, holding the man stable, "You're badly hurt."   
  
"Where am I?" The man asked slowly. "My head hurts..."   
  
"Yes I'd imagine," Sirius volunteered blithely, leaning forward.   
  
"Could you get the waitress?" Remus asked him sharply. "I don't know anything about healing without--" he stopped himself from saying magic with a quick glance on the now conscious body at the counter.   
  
"There's nothing a Band-Aid won't cure," Sirius remarked as he stood up.   
  
"'Cept a broken heart."   
  
"What?" Sirius turned to the counter.   
  
The man gritted his teeth, holding onto his side, which was still bleeding wickedly. "I said a Band-Aid will cure everything except a broken heart."   
  
Remus saw flickers of something pass over Sirius's face, and he knew almost instantly whom that flicker was; her name, her memory, almost as blatant as his heartfelt silence. "Yes..." he finally assented, his face for once solemn. "That's true." Sirius turned, and without another word strode into the backroom, his prison-issue shoes flapping on the hard tile floor.   
  
"My head hurts," the man grunted still gripping his side.   
  
"You'll be fine," Remus said, trying to reassure him as the man groaned bitterly.   
  
"That's what I'm afraid of..." he tried to smile at the joke, but his laugh was cut off by a moan of pain.   
  
With a clang, the kitchen door swung open and the waitress practically ran into the room. She made it to the bar in four quick strides and grabbed one of the man's hands, ignoring the blood caked around and through it. "What's your name, honey?"   
  
"Isaac," he mumbled through clenched teeth.   
  
"D'you have a phone?" The waitress turned to Remus, her voice tense with urgency.   
  
"No," he said, trying to veil his confusion as best he could.   
  
"Orien, call the doctor," the waitress snapped, turning to the thug standing in the shadows behind Sirius.   
  
He sneered something in Chinese, of which the only word Remus recognized was "Whimsy".   
  
"I don't give a shit, Orien," she growled back at him. "Give me the phone!"   
  
Instead, he gave her a look of hell. Orien pulled a small black Muggle object out of his pocket, which Remus assessed must be the "phone" and began to speak into it in rapid Chinese. Obviously satisfied, the waitress turned back to Isaac. "Orien's calling the doctor, honey. You're gonna be fine."   
  
"Orien?" Isaac muttered, his face draining of the little color it had left. "Naoto's Orien?"   
  
The waitress did not reply, except to stroke Isaac's matted hair.   
  
"Can I do anything?" Remus said, feeling very awkward.   
  
The waitress gave him a piercing look, unervingly like Dumbledore's. "You can answer a few questions of mine, mister. Other than that, no."   
  
"Questions?" Remus raised his eyebrow, still wary.   
  
She gave a strained smile. "I don't think I'll be getting many straight answers."   
  
"What do you want to know?" Remus said carefully.   
  
"Your name for one," she replied frankly. "You weren't so close-mouthed before your friend showed up."   
  
In spite of himself, Remus felt his face redden, "What's your name?"   
  
"Su Vix," she snapped drolly. "Or in English Vix Su, take your pick. Now can I be enlightened?"   
  
"He's John Lennon," Sirius smirked, sidling up between Remus and the newly passed-out Isaac. "And I'm Ringo Starr."   
  
Remus registered a blank look, which fit the gap in his mind, but Vix gave Sirius a look of pure venom. "I am really beginning to dislike you."   
  
"It's mutual, dearie," he smiled smugly.   
  
"My name's Remus Lupin," Remus said with a pang of conscience, ignoring Sirius's look of disgust. "This is..."   
  
"Padfoot," Sirius interrupted, throwing out his hand. "My parents were the hippie types." Remus hadn't a clue what "hippie types" were, but they seemed a plausible explanation to Vix, who took Sirius's hand with a curt nod.   
  
Remus was just about to say something, when he felt a persistent prickling between his shoulder blades... an intense feeling of being watched. And then... the world exploded in a tinkle of breaking glass and a blinding sheet of white light.


	4. Iron Curtain

****

CHINA DOLL IV-- IRON CURTAIN

August 27, 1842

Laudanum. Paregoric. Opium Tincture. The mist from the poppy that brought with it the haze that the west so craved. They were mad about the drug, mad from the drug. Mad to be shipping it out of Hong Kong in vessels by the thousands ignoring the threats by the Qing government; threats because the Qing were sick. Sick of the English playing on the epidemic opium addiction of their armies. Sick of the British defying Chinese authority in their own country. And so they went to war…

All of this was far from the mind of Richard Brigton. Brigton, in all of his official glory, or as much official glory as the third naval officer in Her Majesty's vessel The Lottery was entitled to, was enjoying his day off on the isle of Hong Kong. They had done it now, yes by god they had. The Chinese were too damn scared to do a thing about it, in less than a week Hong Kong would belong to the Bloody British-- about time too-- and they'd have free reign over opium trade in the high east. Not that Richard cared too much about the Opium trade, well he loved a smoke of it here and again, but he was strictly a military man. However, this time it was different, once they had Hong Kong under their belts every man in the British Empire would be as rich as the Caliph of Baghdad. Richard decided he wouldn't mind a palace, he would rather enjoy it in fact, especially if it had a harem with all those desert lassies… 

As if to give voice to his thoughts, a light lilting song drifted through the thick tropical jungle. 

__

"In the east, lofty mountains Soar up to touch the blue sky…" 

Intrigued, Richard wandered closer to the noise. He didn't mind the native maidens in the least. 

__

"Between the peaks plunging voids, Lonely, remote, dark. This is not the work of a craftsman, These clouds were formed by nature…" 

Peering through the thick greenery, Richard saw her. She was unlike anything he had ever seen before, her green kimono blending so beautifully into the lush green woods surrounding, she looked like some forest elemental out of a dream. Spread across her knees was a square instrument that she was playing like one would pluck a harp. She surrounded by an air of such magic and ethereality he felt the strong feeling that he had fallen through the barrier to another world. 

__

"What is there in this scene, Which makes me feel the constant changes? Passing under the eaves of this great house, I can live out my allotted span." 

Richard heard the pound of his heartbeats, just staring at her… at her unearthly beauty was enough. He felt as if he could live his whole life, suspended there, half-concealed behind a bush watching her. She laughed musically, like a bell, "You can come out, I know you're there." 

Richard was too much under he spell to wonder about this statement, and he slowly walked into the clearing, and knelt at her feet. She smelt sickly sweet like poppies, like opium…

"What's your name, darling?" she said, her speech as much of a song as the earlier poem. 

"Who are you…" was all that Richard could manage as she gave a playful laugh. 

"They call me Sunü," she smiled benevolently, leaning down and putting the awe-struck Richard's head on her lap. Ever so gently she leaned down, so that her lips just brushed the collar of his uniform. "I want you to stay with me… forever." 

Richard never even noticed the fangs sliding into his neck. 

----

Sirius opened his eyes in some sort of bizarre winter wonderland. The brown tables, chairs and cabinets were now white, bathed in what looked like fresh snow but was actually glass shredded so thin it was like powder. Vix was bent halfway across the countertop, her face frozen in the middle of a silent scream. Isaac lay on the bar, his arms thrown in front of his face, as if trying to protect it. His hands were covered with a thin coat of glass. Orien was stock still, his cell phone in the middle of a drop, suspended indefinitely between floor and ceiling. None of them were moving. 

With a shiver, Sirius extended his hand and poked Vix on the shoulder. It was like touching stone, she was cold, rock-hard, in all real respects, dead to the world. 

"Sirius?" 

Turning around, Sirius looked at Remus, who was unsuccessfully trying to pull Orien's cell phone out of midair. 

He didn't get a chance to respond, for at that moment a man stepped through what had once been plate glass. 

He stood for a split second, calmly brushing the glass-dust off the arms of his moth eaten black turtleneck, running a hand through his flyaway gray hair, while straightening the over-large square glasses that were sliding off the bridge of his nose. He looked, for all the world like an absent-minded professor but with the carriage of a 60 year old Renaissance man, surveying his work with an almost detached satisfaction. 

Neither one of them moved-- breathed-- as the man took a further step into the room, his brown boots crunching on the shattered glass. With a shrewd look circumcising the diner, his piercing blue eyes fixed themselves on Sirius; only once before had he felt a gaze such as this; a gaze with such fierce predatorial power. That was the one and only time he had met Mad-Eye Moody. 

"So?" Remus said, walking up from behind him to stand by Sirius, who was retaliating with a hostile gaze of his own. The man raised a single eyebrow... questioning. 

"Who are you?" Remus tread carefully, his voice wary. 

"What are you doing in my territory?" the man replied, his eyebrow arching like a snake.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Remus said slowly. 

The man made no reply. 

"Who are you?" Sirius spoke up for the first time, his voice rich with feral hostility. 

"Jonathan Whimsy," he said, never faltering in his unblinking stare. The silence passed, its beats quickly becoming uncountable and innumerable as two stared at one, one at two, back and forth and upside down, locked in a unending visual confrontation. 

"What do you want?" Remus finally broke; the effort of Whimsy's staring match fraying him along the edges. 

"Isaac," Whimsy replied, tilting his head to the side in a purely reptilian movement. 

"Why?" The words were barely out of Remus's mouth when Whimsy replied. 

"I'm his uncle." 

"You won't be able to move him," Sirius said, thinking of Orien's cell phone. 

Remus was eyeing the old man shrewdly and a look of understanding slowly began to creep over his features. "It's like the Impediment Curse, isn't it? Only more... permanent, it stops time for people. You cast it." 

Whimsy smiled coolly, "The Gravatuus Hex. It only works on Muggles." 

"Muggle targeting curses were outlawed by the International Confederation of Wizards in the 1920s," Remus said calmly, regarding Whimsy with quiet accusation. 

"All's fair in love and war." 

Sirius recognized the quote, still warily watching the newcomer. "War?" He said brusquely, finding it unlikely that the "love" part was applicable to Whimsy. 

Whimsy gave a knowing smile. "War," he conceded. Waiting a few more heartbeats until they were suitably uncomfortable, or at least more uncomfortable than they had previously been, Whimsy began to speak. "Have you heard of the Opium Wars?" 

"I fell asleep that day," Sirius said curtly, his sardonic tone a danger signal Remus had long since learned to recognize. 

"Funny." Whimsy sneered, his face an iron curtain carved of human flesh. "In the middle 1800s the British Empire fought a war against China for the control of the Opium Trade in the Far East. Her majesty won... and Britain got the jurisdiction of Hong Kong until 1997. The opium industry is still thriving here today, but there are two people fighting for its control. Myself, and a man named Su Naoto." 

"You're a smuggler," Sirius sneered, his face darkening. 

"I utilize the possibilities," Whimsy replied with all the polished grace of a politician. "And as a mass murderer, Mr. Black, you are in no condition to point fingers." 

"What do you want with us?" Remus said hoarsely, knowing instinctively that Whimsy had a reason for telling them about his "utilized possibilities". 

"With you," Whimsy said coolly. "Mr. Black is a little to recognizable to be of any immediate use to me." 

Remus felt a prickling of anger, "And why should I make myself useful?" 

"Because if you don't," said Whimsy coldly. "I'll have a dragon to every paper in Asia, even your quaint Daily Prophet, with the exact location of your friend here. I believe the current sentence is Dementor's kiss?" 

Remus stood, just staring at Whimsy, whose cold blue eyes shone triumphant. With a wave of self-repugnance, he pulled an indispensable quill out of his pocket. Avoiding Sirius's gaze, he pulled a napkin off the bar and quickly jotted down a few lines. "This is where I'm staying. I'll meet you there when I get back." 

Sirius's look of anger dissolved into one of outright disgust. "You're not going with him?" 

Remus refused to meet his friend's boring stare, "I'll be back soon." 

"Remus!" Sirius threw an arm at Whimsy. "He's a goddamn drug lord!" 

Ignoring Whimsy's satisfied smirk, Remus looked up into Sirius's cloud of barely confinable fury. "Trust me." 

"I'm coming with you," he replied, fiercely slamming Remus's hastily scrawled napkin down on the bar. 

Whimsy raised an eyebrow. "Fine, I suggest an anonymity charm--" 

"I wasn't asking for your permission!" Sirius growled. 

Whimsy ignored him. "We'll dissapperate to my office. Grab Isaac." 

At Sirius's threatening snarl, Remus strode over to the bar and simply beyond caring heaved Isaac over his shoulder. Whimsy made no sound, but looked more than intrigued at the sickly looking man carrying and unconscious body one handed. Staring shrewdly at Remus as if he was seeing him for the first time, he smiled. Then turning, Whimsy aimed his wand at Vix. "Envirate." With a whoosh of air, they disapperated. 

----

The first thing Vix heard was a crash of breaking metal. 

The second: a slight whisper of air. 

The third: a scream she didn't even know she had began. 

"Woman!" Snapping her jaws closed, Vix turned to Orien, crouched over the broken remnants of what had once been his cell phone. 

Then it all flooded back to her; Isaac, the two Englishmen, the explosion... Glass was everywhere, covering the floors like a blanket of unwelcome snow. The entire front of her restaurant was in shambles, the brown cinder block wall charred black, and they were gone-- all of them-- Isaac, Padfoot, and Remus. 

"Whimsy," Orien hissed, sniffing the air like some feral animal. "He did this." 

"Shut up with your Whimsy rot," Vix snorted. The last thing she needed right now was Orien on the rampage. 

"That boy was one of his," Orien sneered, not listening to her or even talking to anyone but himself. "The foreigners were in on it, they planted a bomb--" 

But Vix ceased to listen, for on the bar, on a half-wrinkled napkin was a note, hastily scrawled in an almost illegible drivel. 

__

Sirius-- 218 Ho Chi Mien, Apartment 2A

As Orien's rant simply became background noise, Vix, becoming more and more intrigued, picked up the napkin. Walking to the other side of the bar, she grabbed her coat, which was surprisingly still intact. 

"Good-bye Orien." 

She didn't even think he noticed as she slipped through the gaping hole in the plate glass.


	5. Man is a Wolf to Man

****

China Doll V-- Man is a Wolf to Man 

218 Ho Chi Mien was not a pretty sight. Decrepit would be the word, or maybe desolate, probably a mixture of both. Apartment 2A was a classic example of what was wrong with utilitarian-style buildings built on the budget of half a shoestring. The crumbling cement was slowly reverting back to crushed rock as it fell from the ceiling into little piles on the cracked tile floor, which was in desperate need of a sweep. Sidestepping a hypodermic needle, Vix shuddered. 218 was one of those places finding itself cloaked in chronic gray even when the sun was shining, a place where laughter was as alien as money. Scuttling past a sign that read **"NO P TS"**, she stopped in front of Apartment 2A. There was no name in the tarnished nameplate, no mat in front of the door, no sign that the place was inhabited at all. Taking a glance around nervously, Vix raised her hand to knock. There was no reply, the silence as unnerving as the building itself. Vix shuddered, trying to decide what to do next. With an inward smile at her naivete, she reached a hand for the rusty doorknob. 

It swung open. 

Vix stood there in shock. She hadn't actually expected for the door to be unlocked... Glancing nervously over her shoulder, she took a step into the apartment, slamming the door closed behind her, and then hesitantly, she pushed the dead bolt into the lock. "Hello?" 

A slight whisper of wind was her only reply. 

Vix groped around for a light switch, conveniently finding it on her right. With a click the darkness was illuminated. It was only one room; one room with a rusty stove and a door that led to either a closet or bathroom. There was no one there, the room looked as bare and uninhabited as the rest of the apartment building. Vix took a hesitant step on the creaky hardwood floor, nearly screaming when a cockroach scuttled across her foot, and cautiously made her way to the door. It opened as easily as the front door, giving a reluctant creak as she stepped inside. It was a bedroom. A rusty iron frame bed was pushed against the wall, with a sorry-looking mattress thrown casually across it. The room had obviously been furnished around the same era as her diner, for the carpet under her feet was a moldy orange-brown. A single case was neatly propped up against the wall, right next to a cardboard box. Kneeling down Vix tried to make out the peeling letters on the suitcase. _Professor R. J. Lupin _

Unlike everything else in the apartment, the case had a rusty lock on it, so she turned to the cardboard box instead. Feeling slightly guilty, Vix opened the lid, sneezing when she was engulfed by a cloud of dust. Right on top was what looked like a scroll out of the old sword-and-sandal movies. She picked it up hesitantly, as if afraid that it would bite, and gently began to unroll it. _How to Pinpoint and Destroy Werewolves: an essay by Hermione Granger (Gryffindor Third Year)_. Vix almost laughed, this sounded like some sort of Goth-Rocky Horror Picture Show cult. Placing the scroll by her side, she took another look into the box. It was full of books, books like she had never seen before. They were all leather bound, leather ranging from the classic black to a scarlet red and a bright purple. There was even a tome covered in what looked like snake-skin. Pulling that one out, Vix opened the cover apprehensively. _The Auror's Encyclopedia of Dark Creatures and Their Magic: 5th edition_, it proclaimed in an official looking green script. She tried to suppress a giggle as she flipped randomly through the book. Suddenly, a brightly colored photograph caught her eye. It was of a woman in a red dress, cut in the medieval style with a square neckline and flowing bell sleeves. Her skin was whiter than the paper she was printed on, her long black hair cascading over her face in a river. Her red lips were twisted into a perfect inviting smile, just barely showing her pure white teeth. Vix could have sworn that the woman winked at her, but she pushed that aside as she turned to the article right beside the painting. 

**__**

PSYCHE- The psyche is often referred to as a cross between its cousin the common vampire (pg. 2109) and the dementors (pg. 677) embodying the worst characteristics of both creatures. Unfortunately psyches are so rare, and so elusive when found, that only limited research has been performed on this creature. Though never backed up as scientific fact, it is currently believed that, like their cousin the vampire, psyches are "undead" or corpses that somehow retain their awareness. However, psyches lack their soul and try to make up for this emotional void by consuming the feelings of their victims, who generally lapse into insanity. Depending on the depth of their emotion, a psyche can feed on any given human for a period ranging from a few days to weeks on end, finally reaching a state of heightened awareness commonly referred to as "transcendence". At this time, the psyche will drain their victim of their blood, and the human stripped of their life and emotion will too become a psyche. 

The last psyche to be taken into custody (see photograph opposite page) was in 1941. She was an obsessive compulsive neurotic, who referred to herself only as "Z". Until she attacked one of her guards, Z amused herself by counting the number of ceiling tiles in her cell and dividing it incessantly by random irrational decimals. A stake through the heart had no effect on her though she finally perished when burned alive. 

Psyches are prone to general vampiric tendencies, shunning garlic, hawthorn, rowan, salt and running water, though sunlight has no known effect on them. Its is also commonly believed that they are repelled by St. John's Wort and magnets, fears that are not shared by their blood-sucking cousins. 

**__**

see also VAMPIRE (COMMON), DEMENTORS, and TRANSCENDENCE 

Vix shivered, shutting the dusty volume with a slam. Psyches and vampires... in spite of her rationality she felt the small hairs on the back of her neck rise. Shaking off the feeling of being watched, Vix reached into the dank cardboard box again, pulling out _When Marshes Get Murky: Hinkypunks, Kappas, and Other Aquatic Demons_. This was followed _by The Life Cycle and Migration Patterns of West African Sprites_, and _The Quick Reference Spell Guide (1989 edition)_. Soon she was trapped in an endless parade of _Moody in the Moonlight: The Secret Life of Werewolves_, _Unforgivable Curses: The Dark Arts and Their Effect on 20th Century History,_ and _The Idiots Guide to Dark Magic Protection_. Vix didn't know how long she spent on the floor, engulfed in a cloud of dust, flipping through the books in outright amazement, surprised at the pictures, the spells, the topic span of the Idiot's Guide Series... She was only woken from her reverie when the door slammed... hard. 

---- 

Whimsy's office materialized around them in a cloud of white. The squishy white carpet under their feet led straight up to a white desk with white paper lying over in it neat piles waiting to be signed. The white filing cabinets blended perfectly with the white walls, so clean even Remus's grandmother would have been satisfied. Hanging over Whimsy's coputer was a black and white Muggle photograph of a woman singing into a microphone, with a look of sultry tragedy ingrained into her face. 

"Billie Holiday," Whimsy said quietly, noting the direction of Remus's gaze. "One of the greatest Jazz vocalists the world has ever seen." 

"I've never heard of her," said Remus absently, his full attention still riveted on Holiday, the smoke from the bar she was in curling up around her microphone and into her hair, giving the picture an almost ethereal feel. 

"She was before your time," Whimsy replied, his voice sounding for a moment wistful. In a second the old taskmaster was back, his words striking with a hard edge renewed. "Drop Isaac on the floor, we have much to discuss." 

Tearing his eyes away from the image that had so captured his infatuation, Remus dropped Isaac on the pure white carpet, which let up a small moan at being so rudely disturbed. 

"Shut up!" Whimsy roared, and with a start, Remus realized he was talking to the rug. The carpet gave one more discontented squeal before lapsing into a sulky silence, "Sit," Whimsy said, gesturing to two white upholstered chairs standing by his desk. Feeling rather like a wolf in sheep's clothing, Remus obliged, wincing when his muddy feet left prints on the seething carpet. 

Whimsy slid in behind his desk with lithe feline grace, and for the second time that day, fixed Remus with his unnerving stare. "I have many questions to ask you, but none of them are relevant at the moment." 

Sirius leaned forward over Whimsy's immaculate desk, "Cut the crap old man," he growled. "What do you want with him?" 

Whimsy raised an eyebrow and bent forward, "I asked you why you were in my territory. No wizard in his right mind comes to Hong Kong. They know it's a battleground. I don't know why you're here, and frankly I don't care." 

"What do you want?" Sirius repeated, his eyes narrowing into slits. 

"Let me tell you a story," Whimsy replied coolly, tapping his fingers on the desk. "Do you know what happened in 1945?" 

"Grindewald was defeated," Remus said still unsure of what this had to do with anything. He hadn't come to listen to a lecture on the history of magic... 

Whimsy nodded, his face impassive, "Grindewald was a German wizard, and a Muggle born. He had very definite ideas about… right and wrong, persay, and according to Grindewald, everything that was going wrong in Germany was the fault of the Jews. He encouraged Anti-Semitic movements in Germany, helping one to power. When this movement took… drastic actions, the Muggles went to war over it. But to condense an extremely long and complicated epoch, Grindewald was defeated by Dumbledore just as the Allied Muggle forces took Berlin. His unofficial reign defiantly over, Grindewald's old supporters fled Germany. All of them were captured, except one. He took refuge up in Durmstang for a few years, the headmaster had always been a quiet supporter of Grindewald and then moved to a place where no Western wizards would ever think to look." 

"Hong Kong," said Remus finished for him quietly. 

"Yes," Whimsy drew a rasping intake of breath. "Hong Kong." 

"What does this have to do with anything?" Sirius snapped, exasperated, not seduced by Whimsy's urgent air at all. 

Giving Sirius a cold glance for ruining his moment, Whimsy continued. "This man started to integrate himself into Chinese life, posing as a Muggle of course. He even took a hand in the Opium business, which provided very lucrative results. But then in the early 1960s, almost fifteen years after the fall of Grindewald, a young man searched this wizard out. This man had plans to become the next Dark Wizard, and more out of amusement than anything else, the wizard taught him everything he knew. Never did he expect than his pupil would meet with so much success. I am talking, of course, of Lord Voldemort." 

"So this man," Remus said carefully. "Does he still live in Hong Kong?" 

"Yes." Whimsy replied. "Why do you think I am in the Opium trade? Not of my own volitation." 

"So you're saying this man is Su Naoto?" Remus said, still trying to vainly put the pieces together. 

"Precisely," Whimsy smiled genially, the first friendly emotion Remus had seen on his face. "The opium trade is just a cover up for Naoto's operations." 

"What operations?" Sirius said warily. It was obvious that Whimsy had not yet won his trust. 

"Naoto has seen the rise and fall of two dark lords," Whimsy said quietly. "With so much experience, do you not think he'd give it a try of his own. There has been a void in the leadership of the Dark Arts ever since the fall of Voldemort. A void Naoto now plans to fill." He paused, letting the magnitude of this statement sink in. "I'm sorry if I seemed a little abrupt back in the city, but when I found you in Naoto's daughter's diner--" 

"Wait--" Remus held up his hand. "Vix is Naoto's daughter?" 

Whimsy nodded assent, "He had two children, both Muggle, and whether or not they know of their father's activities is beyond me. Nor frankly, do I care, since they press no immediate threat." 

"I still don't understand why you're telling us all this..." Remus trailed off, wallowing in his confusion. 

"Telling you," Whimsy replied. "Mr. Black is too recognizable to be of any use, and with his past history, not one I could trust." 

"So how do you know I'm not conspiring with Sirius?" Remus snapped. 

Whimsy sighed, "I don't. But I suspect you don't want Mr. Black revealed to the world. If you don't help me the first person who knows will be Cornelius Fudge." 

Remus grimaced, "That's blackmail." 

"Do you think I care?" Whimsy smirked. "You're smarter than that." 

"What do you want?" 

Whimsy paused for a moment, exhaling, "Your help." 

"We've established that," Sirius glared angrily. 

Whimsy ignored him, staring at Remus once again. "I want you to kill Su Naoto." 

---- 

Sirius watched his friend as they apperated in the hall outside the apartment. Remus had already set up rudimentary wards, so they had to go to the inconvenience of using the door. He tried not to notice the crumbling cement and assorted garbage littered around the hall, and as the door swung open on its rusty hinges, it was even harder not to notice the look on Remus's face. Whimsy had given him 24 hours for his decision, and they'd left the office in silence. He could only begin to imagine the kind of emotional turmoil his friend was going through. If you wanted to hire an assassin, Remus Lupin was not the route to go. All joking aside, he was genuinely afraid for Remus. Afraid that he would go do something irrational, something noble, or most likely, something just plain stupid. But against his better nature Sirius kept his mouth shut, knowing from experience, that where Remus was concerned, it was best to just let him ride his emotions out. 

Without a word to his companion, Remus walked through the empty room towards a door on the other side. Mentally, Sirius crossed off all possible conversation starters, "Nice place" and "I like the pad" just seemed like mockeries in reference to the empty shell of a room he say before him, a room that could have only been bought on a thread of a shoestring. "You can take the bed," Remus said hoarsely as he threw open the wooden door. 

Sirius stopped dead under the doorjamb. With a wave of horror, he resigned himself to the fact that the day's angst was far from over, in fact it had just begun. For a second the one-time Marauders stared in drop-jawed shock at the intruder, who looked if anything more surprised than they were. 

"I..." Vix began, her face wandering aimlessly over a meadow of emotions. 

Sirius instantly ran over all possible reasons for Vix's intrusion; the least likely involving a pair of singing house-elves and the most probable instructions from Su Naoto. Eyes narrowing, he glanced at Remus, whose dark expression read that he had reached the same conclusion. He stepped back and let Remus take over. 

"What are you doing here?" Remus said wearily, the exhaustion in his voice tangible. 

"Its not what you think," Vix said swiftly. 

"It had better not be," Sirius replied in spite of his previous vendetta on leaving the situation to Remus. His friend didn't look like he could handle the Hogwarts kitchen crew at the moment. 

"I'm not trying to steal anything," Vix began to blabber, her pale face even whiter than normal. "It isn't even breaking and entering really... the door was already unlocked, and when I found the address you left--" 

"Address?" Sirius drew an immediate blank. 

Vix pulled a crumpled napkin out of the pocket of her coat. "This was on the bar." 

"It's the one I left for you, before we went with Whimsy," Remus sighed, closing his eyes as he sat down on the diseased bed. 

"Whimsy?" Vix looked up sharply, her fear mingling with blatant suspicion. 

"Why didn't you tell us your father was Su Naoto?" Remus asked, his face gray and wan. 

Vix's face hardened, and when she spoke it was with a twinge of bitterness, "I didn't think it was important." At the silence that greeted her she continued, "What? Are you working for Jonathan Whimsy? 'Cause if you are... I think I should just leave, and we'll forget any of this ever happened." 

"It did happen," Remus spoke with a embittered resignation. "Don't go..." 

Sirius did not say anything, but in his mind, the best thing was to get Vix out of there as soon as humanly possible. 

"I don't see any reason in staying," she replied viscously. "I'm not going to let you hold me hostage." 

"I'm not working for Whimsy," Remus replied quietly 

Vix glared at him savagely, "Then what do you want?" 

He looked up, his calm voice unnerving, "To know why you're in my house." 

Vix looked down at her feet, suddenly abashed of her attack. "I found this address on the bar, you were all gone and Orien was... incoherent, so I just left, and came here. Your door was unlocked, my curiosity got the better of me, I found this room, and these books and... lost track of the time. I didn't mean anything." 

"I could have you arrested," Remus said slowly. 

Vix gave him the merest wisp of a smile, "But you won't." 

He smiled the first real smile Sirius had seen on Remus's face since the days before Azkaban. "No, I won't." 

"Let me ask you something then," Vix said, and without waiting for his reply, charged on. "Why did you leave like that, and what are all these books? Spells? Vampires?" 

Remus shook his head, "I left because I had no choice. And the books are books... on spells and vampires..." 

"He's a collector," Sirius volunteered, seeing Moony was in no shape to resurrect their old games. 

Instead of the skeptic reply he had anticipated, Vix's face broke into a wide smile. "Where do you find these things, they're incredible! That Auror Encyclopedia..." 

Smirking slightly to himself at a job well done, Sirius tuned Vix out, he too was exhausted though doing a better job of hiding it than Remus. The motion sickness from Dumbledore's portkey was just beginning to catch up with him. Without caring about what lurked in its depths Sirius sat down on the revolting orange carpet, and openly yawned. He was just about to lie down the whole way when a piece or parchment caught his eye. Reaching out, he grabbed it and unrolled the first part. _How to Pinpoint and Destroy Werewolves: an essay by Hermione Granger (Gryffindor Third Year)_. His lighthearted mood gone; Sirius stuck the paper inside his robes, staring at his friend, who was now smiling at one of Vix's cracks. _Moony_... he thought... _when will you ever learn that you were the best of us? _

---- 

November 4, 1977 

"You wanted to see me, sir?" One year out of Hogwarts and Remus was already missing Dumbledore sorely. Even from behind, Barty Crouch was an imposing figure, his perfectly manicured hair and starched collar masking the taskmaster that lurked within. Crouch turned his annoying aloof brown eyes to Remus, his look plainly wondering why he bothered with such lesser imbeciles. 

"Yes," he replied arrogantly, motioning for Remus to sit down. "Lupin, what does being an auror mean to you?" 

Remus searched for some reply to the surprisingly stereotypical question. "Er..." he took a breath, hoping to sound remotely intelligent, "To stop Voldemort?" 

"Exactly," Crouch leaned forward, over his desk so close that Remus flinched. "Stopping Voldemort. Stopping." 

"Sir?" Remus stammered, desperately trying to comprehend what was going on. 

"Stopping!" Crouch turned around, his pencil mustache twitching. "Not eradicating-- not killing-- not wiping from the face of the earth!" 

Remus felt his confusion swiftly deepen. "Sir?" he repeated. 

"When a dark wizard faces you, Lupin he will not "stop" you," Crouch sneered, his voice layered with sarcasm and scorn. "He will kill you. He will squash you. He will torture you until you scream for mercy and then wipe your warm blood all over your dead body!" Remus didn't say a word, staring at his teacher with a look of shocked horror. "I thought you, of all people would understand." Crouch said, leaning back slowly. "Its wolf eats wolf out there Lupin, are you ready for it?" 

"I try," Remus stammered, still recovering from Crouch's precious outburst. 

"Well you might as well stop trying," Crouch replied, once again with his stoic aloofness. "I'm expelling you." 

"What?" 

Instead of giving him a straightforward answer, Crouch leaned forward again. "Would you curse a unaware and unarmed Death Eater?" He paused, waiting for Remus to reply, and when he got none, gave a triumphant smile. "I thought not." 

---- 

__

...Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs... With Sirius asleep downstairs and Vix gone (with a promise to return the next day), Remus found himself seeking solace in the one place he had turned to during all those years at Hogwarts, ironic or not, under the stars. James had joked endlessly about that calling Remus a centaur in wolf's clothing. He had laughed then… he still laughed now, come to think of it. Where had they gone, Wormtail and Prongs? James had left-- forever. The insufferable Prongs, their fearless leader surrendered finally to his own mortality. In his own childish way, Remus had believed James immortal, and now by a trick of fate… he was. Prongs would never age for him, or fade, or die, as vivid now as the day they met on the Hogwarts Express. Unlike Peter… 

Peter or "little buddy" as Sirius had often called him as much to antagonize as out of affection. What had happened to Peter, the chubby, sweet boy so painfully naïve that he made them all laugh? Though to the casual outsider Peter might just seem like a tag-along, he was as integral to the Marauders and Moony, Padfoot, and Prongs. Not one of them had shared his innocence, his optimism, and now even that was gone… forever. 

It was odd that the two least alike were the two that survived. After twelve years of adamant denial, Remus could only now admit that Sirius was the one he had missed the most. Devil-may-care and soaring with a temper to burn any inflated ego, Sirius looked a far cry from the introverted, introspective Remus, but he had formed a connection with Padfoot that his link with James and Peter could never match. Maybe it was the canine brotherhood, there had always been enough wolf in Sirius that he could understand Remus more than the herbivore and the rodent. Maybe it was that they were both bloody egomaniacs, maybe-- 

__

Maybe you should shut up and get to bed. Remus smiled inwardly, maybe, just maybe there was more of Sirius inside of his than he thought. 

The moon was bright tonight. Even at this time in her cycle, she still had an effect on Remus, but for the first time in his life, he didn't care. For the first time in twelve brutal years, he was honestly happy. A cloud moved in the sky, partially obscuring the moon from view. He waited until it moved again, waited until he was basking in the soft silver half-light of the moon, the fickle goddess of his life, his nights, his nightmares. He closed his eyes, feeling the soft midnight drizzle fall lightly on his body, spread-eagled across the roof of a skyscraper in a city of buildings. And lying there… alone… Remus Lupin let out a long mournful howl. 


	6. Best of Both Worlds

****

CHINA DOLL VI-- BEST OF BOTH WORLDS

It was not an easy job, shipping a hippogriff. 

Of course, a hippogriff was the last thing the postal service thought they were shipping, all they knew that the undescript cardboard box addressed to a Mr. P. Foote, esq., shook and howled like a banshee having an epileptic seizure. It was when several postmen flat out refused to touch the parcel as it was being unloaded into a Hong Kong train station that their supervisor called his superior...

----

"And what can I do for you fine people?" Vix leaned over the bar, her starched white uniform plunging dangerously low. 

"Two coffees," Remus sputtered through a yawn, glaring belligerently at the wide-awake Sirius. "Both for me..." 

"Surprise me," Sirius said as Vix grabbed a notepad to take his order. "Just surprise me for under four pounds because I don't feel like emptying my wallet." 

Giving him the look of disgust inherent to all females, she turned away and sauntered into the repaired kitchen. Despite first glances, the damage from Whimsy's explosion had been minimal, in fact, the only thing that was broken beyond repair was the plate glass window, now filled up with a piece of plywood, already covered from side to side with the graffiti of 1000 different artistically-inclined vandals. 

Sirius settled back in his chair and his attention slowly drifted to a television hanging over the bar which had remarkably survived the blast. It was now broadcasting what had to be local news on a low volume. He was about to say something to Remus when a name caught his ear. "...P. Foote, esq. Frankly Huey, I don't think we've seen anything like this." Sirius's head whipped around and he saw a pretty young reporter gesturing to a cardboard box as tall as she was jumping around a train station like a frog on steroids. A crowd of increasingly bewildered pedestrians gawked openly. "Due to their privacy policy, the International Postal Federation refuses to open the package at this time, but is instead holding it at the Singh Station until it is claimed by the mysterious P. Foote, esquire. I hope if any of our viewers know of the whereabouts of this elusive man, they will contact him and let his know his package is waiting-- enthusiastically," she added as the box gave a loud squawk. Flashing a mouthful of pearly whites, the reporter spoke once more into the camera, "This is Nsia Mbambe, signing off." 

Sirius could feel Remus's cool gray eyes on the back of his neck before he even turned around. "What did you do?" 

Sirius smiled wickedly and for a second Remus thought they were back at Hogwarts in the days when Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs roamed free. "You know how hippogriffs and portkeys disagree, and it wasn't as if I could leave Buckbeak in Madrid. To be entirely truthful, he saved my life." 

Remus looked completely non-impressed; "You shipped the damn bird?" 

Sirius clucked his tongue, "It's not a damn bird, if you want to be correct it's currently a cramped one." 

"How stupid are you?" Remus growled; the sleep washed from his face by absolute dismay. "Do you think the bird would just stay still for 2000 miles? How could it NOT be noticed?" 

"Its no big deal," Sirius shrugged. "We just go down to the station and grab the box, right?" 

"It was on their telepison!" Remus scowled and then wondered briefly why Sirius was snickering. "You expect the Muggles to let us sneak in and sneak out? Not that sneak is even an option when we have a seven-foot hippogriff with us! There will be pictures, news stories... what is someone sees? What is Snape hears? He's not stupid, he'll know who P. Foote is in an instant!" 

"Snape doesn't live in Hong Kong," Sirius protested sullenly. 

"I am willing to bet there are more wizards here than Jonathan Whimsy and Su Naoto," Remus scowled. "You are in hiding, Sirius." 

"Alright!" He threw up his hands, a chastened expression on his face. "You get it." 

"What?" Remus sputtered, obviously this was not what he had had in mind. 

"I obviously can't," Sirius smirked. "And I can't leave it there. Think of Hagrid." 

"I could care less," Remus persisted, but the words sounded false even in his own ears. 

"Thanks Moony," Sirius replied, a genuine smile on his face. 

"You owe me," Remus snarled, trying desperately not to loose his caution in Sirius's happy-go-lucky aura. 

"Nah, we're even," Sirius smiled. "Remember the time in sixth year when I lent you my broomstick; to take Viola Lorenzo out on that romantic ride out under the stars? You never paid me back." 

Feeling in great need of a potent headache charm, Remus laid his head on the table. "Do shut up." 

----

Remus had never liked hippogriffs. Big, feathery, and annoyingly arrogant had always been his assertion of the monsters that Hagrid had held so dear. Therefore, nothing but great love for Sirius and a dull loyalty to the old gamekeeper could have possessed him to go down to the station that July morning. 

Once he got there, he had the strong inclination to bolt. The crowd had swelled from the few stragglers portrayed on the news to a few hundred, all gazing at the quaking box with morbid fascination. Biting his teeth, he pressed into the melee. It was like trying to fight your way through the crowd of third-years that gathered when Honeydukes was giving away free samples. Only worse: third-years were short. After much pushing, shoving, and other aggressive whatnot, Remus finally squeezed his way to the front, where three haggard representatives of the International Postal Federation stood holding the box down. Around them stood about a dozen preening reporters, one of whom Remus recognized as "Nsia Mbambe" from the diner. 

Trying to avoid the television crews, he skulked up next to a particularly worn postal worker. "Er... that's my package." 

The man turned to him as if he was the messiah come again, "Mr. P. Foote?" 

"Esquire," Remus added, figuring if he was going to impersonate Sirius he may as well do it properly. 

"Sign here," the postman pulled out a clipboard. Buckbeak chose that moment to let loose a long anguished bellow such as only a hippogriff could produce, and any trace of color rapidly fled from his face. "Sign. For the love of god..." 

Taking the clipboard, Remus scribbled something sufficiently illegible and turned to the cardboard box. How to actually transport a hippogriff inconspicuously had never crossed his mind, and unfortunately for Remus, it had not crossed the minds of the editors of the Idiot's Guide either. If he actually pulled it off, whatever else life threw at him afterwards would be an absoblute joke. 

"Mr. Foote," sinking further into his swamp of dismay, Remus found himself faced with the smiling Nsia Mbambe and her complete camera crew. "What a pleasure to meet you at last!" 

Lying through his teeth, Remus took a step backwards away from her smiling visage. "You too." 

"So," she said, her candy-coated smile persisting. "Our viewers are just dying to know what's in that box!" 

"Frankly," Remus snapped, giving Mbambe a black look, "It's none of your viewers business." 

"Oh come now Mr. Foote," Nsia flashed another rehearsed smile. "Don't be such a Scrooge!"

Having grown up in the boarding school we all know as Hogwarts, which never in its recorded history had never submitted his students to Charles Dickens except in cases of extreme punishment, Remus hadn't a clue of what Mbambe was talking about. "What?" he said blankly. 

"Ebeneezer Scrooge?" Nsia pressed on at his blank look. "Bah Humbug? The Ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future?" Because she wasn't making any progress, Nsia gave up. "If you won't tell us what's in that box, Mr. Foote, maybe you could give us a hint?" 

"No," Remus said flatly grabbing the pushcart which Buckbeak's box was precariously balanced on. "And if you'd excuse me..." 

"You're disappointing our viewers, Mr. Foote!" 

Remus didn't even bother to reply as he wheeled the hippogriff into the swarming crowd. 

----

Nsia pulled the tiny microphone off her button-down jacket and with a quick glance to assure her cameraman was busy flirting with a waif half his age, she snuck off into a dark corner of the station. Normally her side job as a reporter was completely useless. Nsia often felt as if she had to give that packaged smile one more time, or attend just one more garden club meeting she would scream. Nevertheless, this seemingly inane story had turned up interesting results, results he would die for. 

Pushing a dreadlock out of her face, Nsia pulled a cell phone out of her pocket. As she glanced around to make sure she was truly alone, Nsia dialed a number she had long since committed to heart. "Orien? I found your Brit..."

----

"Do you need any help with that, Mr. Foote?" 

Wheeling around in a moment of alarm, Remus felt his heart race. "Not from you." 

"Temper, temper," Jonathan Whimsy gave the patronizing stare he had utilized so well. 

"What do you want?" Remus growled. 

"You know very well what I want," Whimsy hissed in response. "And you're going to give it to me, or else you're friend sets up a kissing booth." 

Remus made no reply, deadlocked in Whimsy's stranglehold. 

"That box is inconvenient," Whimsy waved his hand dismissivly. "I suggest we dissapperate." 

Remus shook his head slowly, "Go away..." 

Whimsy turned the full force of his calculating stare of him, and strangely enough, his voice softened. "You have a duty, Mr. Foote, a duty to me, a duty to your friend, and most importantly a duty to the freedom of wizards everywhere." 

Remus did not bother to stifle his hollow laugh, "You're a real spin doctor, you know that?" 

"Ah well," His moods never ceasing to change, Whimsy grinned. "We all have our little talents." 

"Where to?" Remus said, feeling his defenses crumble out from under his feet. 

"My office," Whimsy replied with a knowing smile. "I knew you'd come around." 

----

"Hello 24 Hour Diner, this is Vix speaking. How may I help you?" Amazingly after yesterday's blast, the electricity still worked, allowing Vix to reopen her restaurant for business almost immediately. All in all the only lasting impact the bomb had was to assure Vix that there truly was a god. 

"This is Orien." On the other hand, maybe the almighty was not watching…

"What do you want?" She sighed, quickly gathering up all shreds of self-control for further usage. 

He paused, and when Orien next spoke his voice was full of triumph, "I found your Englishman." 

Vix drew a blank, "What Englishman?" 

"The one who bombed your shop," Orien hissed. 

Vix gave a quick look to the outer room, where Padfoot was sitting, devouring his hash. "The Englishmen didn't bomb my shop." 

"They're in league with Jonathan Whimsy," Orien replied as if she was a six-year-old schoolgirl. 

"Peachy for them," Vix snapped. "And they didn't bomb my shop. Frankly, I don't care who did. I can't do anything about it, it's over." 

"Don't be stupid, Vix," Orien's voice rasped over telephone wires. 

"I'm not stupid," she replied with childish force. 

"Why are you defending the foreigners?" Orien mused more to himself than his sister. "Why all of a sudden are you siding with them?" 

"Maybe I'm not a heartless bigot," she snapped. 

Orien grew quiet and Vix could almost see the anger radiating through the phone line, "Where are they?" 

Vix glanced towards the dining room once again, "What do you mean?" 

"Where are they, Vix?" He said threateningly. "They've contacted you, where are they?" 

"I don't know what you're talking about!" She said, trying desperately to stop her voice from wavering in its sincerity. 

"Don't lie to me." Orien said, his voice rising to a roar. "Don't lie to me!" 

Her hand shaking uncontrollably, Vix slammed the phone down into the receiver. 

----

Sho Seiji had made 10 billion dollars in three years. Roughly rounded to 3.25 billion dollars a year, he felt he had maybe a slight reason to feel smug. Maybe slightly bigger than slight. But hard work did not come without a price, and so Seiji found himself hunched over his computer as the sun dipped itself into the sea, long after his office had officially closed. He kept the blinds open, and occasionally glanced up from his black and white spreadsheet to gaze at the tantalizing rays of the pre-dusk sun. 

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Seiji heard a slight click behind him and realized it was his office door closing. Wheeling around in his chair, he saw an unfamiliar tall young man with raven dark hair just brushing his shoulders. 

"Yes..." Seiji replied, slightly shaken. "Yes it is." 

"When I was small," the young man continued, speaking in the tone of a one much in years, "my father used to take me down to the water's shore at sunset, and we'd play the waves. I used to try and hold the color in my hand. It never worked of course." 

"Yes," Seiji said, too mesmerized by the man and his aura to make any more than a monosyllabic answer. 

"Sunsets are beautiful," the man inhaled deeply and Seiji felt a wave of cold slide through him. "It is the most magical time, when night and day meet. The intoxicating brightness slides into its seductive gown, you can loose yourself in night, shed all vestiges of reality. Sunset holds the best of both worlds." 

"Who are you?" Seiji finally managed to choke out a coherent sentence. 

A smile danced across the young man's face, and his hale features seemed withered and old. "I am Lord Grindewald," he breathed, "I am Lord Voldemort… I am living, I am dying. I am hope, I am despair. I am night, I am day. I am the best of both worlds." Seiji remained paralyzed as the fangs slid into his neck. 


	7. Rhapsody

****

CHINA DOLL VII—RHAPSODY

"We have to get out of here." 

Sirius looked up from his hash immediately, the finality of Vix's tone surprising him. Taking a swig of Remus's coffee, he replied. "Why?" 

"Orien's coming; for you and your friend," Vix was deathly white, the pallor of her fear clashing horribly with her starched uniform. 

"Orien?" Sirius had never been one for names. 

"The man in here yesterday! The man you held at gun point!" Vix yelled in frustration and alarm. 

"So why are we running away?" Sirius said, still a little wary of the daughter of Su Naoto. 

"Please trust me," Vix grabbed his arm, forcing him to meet her gaze. She had never seen eyes like his before, eyes black and empty; as bottomless as the night sky was vast. She could loose herself in the deep vacant void of his eyes. 

Somehow, some way, Sirius caught a trace of her urgency and nodded, "Where do we go?" 

"Your place," Vix cringed inwardly at the memory of Apartment 2A. "He'll find us otherwise." 

"All right." 

"What about your friend?" Vix said as Sirius made for the door. 

"Remus can take care of himself," Sirius said, doubting inside his self-created confidence. He hoped that Moony had enough wits to realize something was terribly wrong. 

----

Remus had enough of his own troubles at the moment, not to even mention worrying about Sirius's. Standing in Whimsy's office once again, staring awkwardly around at the surroundings, he felt his sense of optimism slide away into oblivion. 

Whimsy sat down behind his desk, once again surveying the room with a territorial majesty. Ironically, Remus felt as if he was back at Hogwarts standing trial before Dumbledore and facing expulsion for the umpteenth time. But Whimsy was no Dumbledore and the game he now played had progressed far beyond the level of schoolboy pranks... 

Waiting for Whimsy to break his carefully calculated silence, Remus's eyes drifted once again to the picture of Billie Holiday, serene and alive in her smoky night club majesty. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, which warranted an exasperated whine from the carpet. 

Rolling his eyes, Whimsy began drumming his fingers on the impeccable white desk. "Mr. Foote."

"That's not my name," Remus answered defensively, trying to regain some smidgen of control. 

"And frankly Mr. Foote, it matters nothing to me," Whimsy said patronizingly, leaning over the desk. "As long as Su Naoto ends up dead I don't care if you're Mick Jagger. I don't expect you to use a gun, they're too sloppy, too easily traced." 

Remus, who had nothing to say, remained silent. 

"Only one curse will leave no mark." 

Glancing up in horrified comprehension, Remus gaped openly at Whimsy. "No," he said flatly. "No." 

"You're not in any position to refuse, Mr. Foote." Whimsy sneered coldly from across an eternity of whiny carpet. Whimsy's thin lips curved up into the ghost of a smile as Remus locked his own face in resignation. "Just two little words, Mr. Foote. That's all it takes and you'll be free." 

"Damn you," Remus said quietly, his eyes focused on Whimsy's cold blue ones. 

Whimsy looked around his room and took a deep breath, "I believe I'm effectively damned already. You have a week." 

----

The door of Apartment 2A opened and shut with a dry clank. Vix, still shaken, walked across the empty gray room and fixed her stare out the single window, which framed a portrait of a city as busy and inanimate as the cement crumbling around her. Gazing through the wispy curtain of rain she tried desperately to find the tiny brown spot that was the diner. In the immeasurable bustle, it was impossible. "If you never stare off into the distance, then your life is a shame," Vix muttered slowly to herself. 

"Really?" 

She turned around to see Padfoot giving her a cheeky grin. "Yeah. It's a song." 

"I never got that philosophical about simple things," he walked towards her and sat down on the window ledge. "Like looking out a window." 

"You don't get philosophical much," Vix guessed, turning her gaze to Padfoot. 

"No," he mouth smiled, but his eyes remained cold and vacant. "No I don't. Not like Remus anyway." 

"He's philosophical?" Vix said, sitting down on the sill. 

"He's Remus, what can I say?" Padfoot retorted, brushing a wisp of hair out of his face. 

A silence passed; a silence that's beats soon amounted to an eternity, though no real time passed at all. As Vix's eyes wandered around the room, her mind wandered through the jumble of the last two days, wandered right back to the leather bound encyclopedia, to the photograph that had so mesmerized her. 

"Psyche," Vix murmured to herself, and Padfoot turned around at the sudden noise. 

"Come again?" He raised an eyebrow. 

Vix waved her hand dismissivly, "It was in one of those books I was reading yesterday. The psyche, its supposedly some sort of vampire soul-sucker." 

"Ouch," Padfoot raised his other eyebrow, which had the effect of making him look completely ridiculous, even though his expression was quite serious. "Terrible, hmm?" 

Vix glared at him, "Shut up, you're not remotely sympathetic." 

Padfoot gave another wide grin, "I sympathize more than you think." 

"Hardly," Vix laughed. "I think Psyche's are awful, or the idea of Psyches. They can't actually exist. The book called them a cross between a vampire and a dementor... or something like that." 

Vix felt Padfoot stiffen next to her and tilting her head a little she looked at him, "You ok?" 

"I'm fine," he replied, averting her eyes. 

"You're lying," she said flatly, trying in vain to meet those empty dead eyes. 

Padfoot opened his mouth as if to say something, closed it, and then opened it again, his jaunty manner returned. "Soul suckers? Not the most pleasant way to die." 

Vix sighed softly to herself; "You're awful!" 

"No, just aversive," He said, turning his face towards the window and through it, the brewing thunderstorm. 

"How so?" Vix leaned closer to him, the distance between them condensing into mere centimeters. 

"What?" He abruptly jerked away. 

"How are you aversive?" She repeated, more calmly than her beating heart allowed. 

Padfoot gave a wistful smile, "You wouldn't believe me." 

"Probably not," Vix grinned, "but you can try." 

His eyes wandered back to the window. "Its juvenile... my greatest fear in all the world is loosing my soul, by... some... means. Turning into a vegetable without any awareness, but not... dead." He shrugged, trying to dismiss the confession. 

Vix tried a crack, "Lucky for you that vampires, psyches and dementors aren't real." 

Padfoot gave a forced laugh, "Yeah... lucky." 

Vix stared out the window again, and feeling his discomfort beside her decided to match the admission with one of her own, for not reason other than pity. She pointed out the window, gesturing to a tiny speck of green in the city of gray cement. "That's Victoria Park. There is a little fountain near the center, just around a bend from the main road. Next to the fountain are about ten flowerbeds and a white painted bench. We used to go there every Sunday: Orien, my father, my mother, and me. One Sunday when I was about three and Orien six, a man came around the bend selling balloons. Being three, I wanted one, and my father went up to pay for it. When he was getting his wallet, the balloon man pulled a gun on him. He misfired and hit my mother instead... she died. The man that shot her was a nephew of Jonathan Whimsy's. We never went to the fountain after that." There was a long pause, the silence deeper than the shadows growing around them. 

"I'm sorry," Padfoot said awkwardly, laying his hand on her arm. 

"Don't be," Vix lied. "I was three, I barely remember her." 

"I had a friend once," Padfoot began. "My best friend in all the world; still is after twelve years sadly enough. It was Halloween, 1981. I was over at his house, just talking, blabbering on about nothing for hours. He'd just gotten married, had a little baby. I left just before midnight, and riding home something didn't feel right. So I checked on another friend and rode back to James's. He was dead. Dead when half an hour ago I had been talking to him about Quiddich matches..." 

Vix didn't know what Quiddich was. She didn't care. She gripped Padfoot's hand, grimy and filthy as it was, and held on tight. The turning of a rusty handle alerted them to a new presence, but neither moved-- hand in hand, sprit in sprit, staring out into the incoming storm. 

----

"They're not here." 

Nsia took a step into the mangy diner, eyes trying to penetrate the darkness of dusk. Orien knelt down, sniffing the air like a feral beast, sitting down on the cold tile, he growled, the animal sound coming from deep within his chest. "She betrayed me, Nsia. After all Whimsy's done to us, she betrayed me." 

Nsia knelt down beside him, throwing off all vestiges of the petty fake reporter like a much-loathed suit. Silently, slowly, she ran a hand through his spiky hair. Despite his walls, despite his fortress, she could see-- as only Nsia could-- the hurt in Orien's face, feel the pain beneath his carefully constructed facade. "She loves you, Orien," Nsia breathed, touching her face to his. "She loves you." 

"No," he replied, entwining his fingers with hers. "No one loves me… 'cept maybe you." Nsia made no reply except to draw him closer, close enough to hear his heartbeats pound in a perfectly melded rhapsody with her own. "You love me, Nsia," he whispered as he laid his head down on her breast, seeking solace there like a small child. "You love me." 

----

"There's a no pets sign on the front door," Sirius turned around to see Remus smiling weakly with a seven foot cardboard box in tow. 

Suddenly embarrassed, he let go of Vix, who turned away from the window with a look of longing on her face. "Good thing Hagrid isn't here," he plastered a smile to his face. The last thing Moony needed to see was a sentimental Sirius. 

Sirius walked over towards the box, which was still shaking. With an apprehensive glance at Vix, Remus dropped his voice to a whisper. "Whimsy was at the station. He wants me to kill him, Avada Kedrava..." 

"When?" Sirius dipped his head, pretending to be absorbed in the intricacies of the cardboard. 

"I have a week--" 

Tilting his head meaningfully towards Vix, Sirius stood up, "We have a house guest, Moony." 

Remus raised an eyebrow as Vix jumped off the window ledge. "I'm going to abuse your hospitality for a day or two until everything calms down," she said hastily. "Orien's trying to kill you." 

"Why?" Remus raised an eyebrow, his voice a hoarse tambour. 

"Because he thinks you're working for Jonathan Whimsy. He thinks you bombed the diner. And now he wants to kill me because I'm helping you." 

Remus gave the briefest of smiles, "Thank you." 

"Vix," Sirius addressed their guest, who was standing near the window ledge, somewhat nervously. "I want you to meet Buckbeak." 

Remus muttered something like "You don't want to meet Buckbeak," but a quick glance from Sirius shut him up. 

"Buckbeak?" Vix took a tentative step forward. "That's the box from the news." 

"Bravo," Sirius smiled madly. "Its a rare breed of bird, found only in the mountains of Wales. You know how odd those Welshmen are..." Remus gave a slight snort, remembering his childhood days near Mount Snowdon. "Anyway," Sirius continued with his ridiculous monologue, "Meet Buckbeak." He pulled off the packing tape in one big flourish, and gave a slight bow to his less than enthralled audience of two. With a great moan Buckbeak ripped through the thin cardboard facade, and pounded out onto the dirty cement floor. 

Vix stood paralyzed with shock as the half-bird, half-horse, half-something crossed the few feet of flooring and stared her in the eyes. "Bow to it," Remus said, remembering an old dusty fact from Care of Magical Creatures. 

"Or else it will savage you," Sirius added helpfully. 

Vix was still rather queasy about the whole thing, but she didn't have anything else to go on, so with a tentative look at the both of them she gave a slight, but distinct bow. Almost instantly, Buckbeak did the same, and then fell to his knees, worn out with the exhaustion of being shipped from Madrid to Hong Kong on overnight delivery. "I think its asleep..." she whispered quietly. 

"Good," Remus grinned in a friendly sort of way. "I've had enough of that bird to last me a lifetime." 

"Without it, I'd have no lifetime left," Sirius said grinning. "So treat it with some respect." 

Vix looked to the sleeping monster in amazement. "This bird saved your life?" 

"Pity isn't it," Remus grinned at her. 

Ignoring him, Sirius shrugged. "Its a long involved story involving escaped convicts, pompous bureaucrats, and soul-sucking fiends. You wouldn't be remotely interested." 

Vix, of course, had no idea he was being serious. "I'm starved. I know a place around the corner, and I'll treat." 

"Pay back for letting you stay here," Sirius replied. 

"No," Vix said calmly. "I don't want to brave your cooking." 

----

They were in the Prowler when Orien's cell phone rang. With a quick glance to Nsia, he picked it up. "Hello?" 

"Orien," his father only needed to speak one word for the power on his voice to be tangible. 

"Yes?" Orien replied, slowly reaching into his pocket, where he concealed his gun. 

The old man paused a second before replying. "Sho Seiji is dead." 

"How?" Orien said intently. 

"He was found in his office, lying on the floor. There were no signs of a struggle, but it looked like foul play." Su Naoto let out his breath in a long hiss. 

Orien, as always, was a man of action, "What do you want me to do?" 

He could feel Naoto's manipulative smile through the phone line. "Find the murderer that cheated me out of 10 billion dollars. Find him and kill him." 

----

The restaurant around the corner could have been identical to Vix's own. The grungy menu of omelets, hash, and coffee only served to fortify the idea in Sirius's mind that the Americans would conquer them all. Not with their armies, but with their breakfast food. The swell 50s tunes were drowned out by the eleven o'clock news, where a talking head babbled on and on about bombings in Mozambique. "Breakfast at night?" Remus broke their menu-induced silence. "Don't tell the house elves." 

"The what?" Vix looked up from her menu, raising an eyebrow. 

"Don't listen to him, he's delirious," Sirius sighed. 

Vix smirked, "No that would be you." 

"Thank you, Vix," Remus smiled. 

"You're welcome, Remus," she said with a vehement glance at Sirius. 

"Fine," he smirked. "I know when I'm not loved." 

"Pah," Vix snorted. "Not that that would stop you." 

"She learns quickly," Remus said, smiling at Sirius. 

He rolled his eyes, "Easily corrupted is my take on it, poor dear." 

"Shut up," Vix replied, her eyes on the menu. 

"Yes do--" Sirius began, but a glance from Moony shut him up. 

"Look," Remus said, pointing at the television screen, where the reporter was still babbling. 

"One of Hong Kong's most prominent businessmen, Sho Seiji was found dead tonight in his high-rise office complex." The camera zoomed in on a tall cement building. "Seiji had been dead for over an hour when he was discovered by the janitor. Though there were no signs of a struggle, the evidence suggests fowl play." The picture of the office building was replaced with a woman's face. "The leading suspect in the murder is Seiji's fiancé, Su Vix. She is still at large and possibly armed, if you have seen this woman please dial _496-800-7-CRIME_. That's_ 496-800-7-CRIME_." 

No one in the diner had even turned around, but Vix's face was a deathly white as her menu fell to the floor with a thud. 


	8. China Doll

****

CHINA DOLL VIII-- CHINA DOLL

They left their coffee. 

The abandoned their omelets. 

Sirius even let his toast slide away into the great beyond. He had seen it all before, the accusations, allegations, and reparations. Sirius knew how to run, he had far to much practice in that for comfort; but comfort and fleeing are seldom bedmates. No one in the diner noticed them now, but they damn well would when the police showed up. And they weren't going to wait for that. 

----

He left his empathy. 

He abandoned his compassion. 

Orien let all traces of humanity slide away into the great beyond. He was flying high on his hunter's high, cruising along the darkened streets of Hong Kong. All of humanity stood before him, ripe in their weakness, like rows of grain, while he held the naked scythe, ready to cut them down at will. He was the master of all, and the weak all no longer his oppressor. 

And so Orien coasted through the black night, sheathed in black leather, black thoughts flitting across the canvas of his soul. 

----

A earsplitting howl caught into his soul and held it fast. Spinning around in a whirlwind of adrenaline, Remus Lupin looked into the face of a demon. 

A slick black car pulled up at the curb, so fast it was heralded by a shower of red-hot sparks. Jumping out of the roof, a figure howled as a beam of moonlight illuminated his face. 

Orien. 

Everything about him was black, his hair, his leather, the look on his face. Everything except for a tiny glint of silver in his left hand. A penknife. 

Orien tilted his head to the side, a small sickly smile painted onto his face. He let out all of his breath in a long reptilian hiss. 

"Go," Remus whispered to Vix and Sirius, who he knew were somewhere behind him. Without waiting for their reply, he turned to the mad dog he was now faced with. 

Orien said nothing, like Whimsy, he didn't have to. He just smiled his sadistic reptilian smile and gestured Remus towards him. Remus rose to the bait, and before he realized where his feet were taking him, Orien was in his face, the smell of leather, cologne, and sweat catching his senses and holding them captive. He felt a sharp pain in his arm and realized Orien was gripping it, twisting it. The agony exploded. A well-aimed kick to the small of the back brought him to his knees, but he didn't yell. He couldn't yell, give Orien that satisfaction. With a wave of sweeping despair, he realized Orien didn't care. Orien let go of his arm and he sprawled across the asphalt, gritting his teeth with pain as he felt half the skin slide off the left side of his face. With a grace well practiced, Orien knelt down and expertly fitted his hands around Remus's neck. Bending down so his mouth was right by Remus's ear, Orien spoke for the first time. "I am your devil, Limey, and you're my china doll." He paused, and in that pause, Remus could feel his sadistic smile. "I'm breaking you." He lay there, so close Remus could feel his heart beat against his own, feel the sweat from Orien's hands trickle down his spine, feel his breath rasping against his face. The tension was incredible, two suspended in indefinite limbo, he knew suddenly, the feeling of a convict about to die, the pain of a mouse in the paws of a cat, a slug in a sea of salt, he was about to die and somehow, someway, had never felt more alive in his life. He felt Orien's tongue against his head, felt the teeth close, screamed in pain as Orien bit away part of his ear-- and howled. He howled with Remus's blood running down his leather, the tiny piece of ear falling from his mouth to the asphalt without a sound. 

And then, another howl joined the first. Moony had returned. 

Thrashing his head violently, he managed to shake off one of the hands slowly choking him to death. Shooting an arm back he hit Orien square in the chest and was rewarded when the other hand released its stranglehold. He got to his feet, blood from his ear trickling slowly down the side of his head and turned to face his challenger. Orien's teeth were bared in a growl, his bloody lips curling up. Brandishing the penknife, Orien rushed towards him without a sound. Moony caught him on impact, falling to the street with Orien bearing down on top of him, crushing his ribs. Gripping his arm, Moony pushed Orien so they rolled over, the tables turned, the wolf on top. He let out a long howl of pain as Orien pushed the penknife into his shoulder, ignoring the cuts he had made on his own hand in his haste. Their blood mingled indiscriminately flowing to the street in a heinous splash of red. The sight of blood only maddened Moony more. Snapping, he pummeled Orien across the face and was rewarded with a sharp crack. His quarry struggled as Moony punched him again, again, again-- and then the struggling grew weaker... and stopped. 

"Going to kill me, Limey?" 

The words brought it all rushing back, the words-- language a far away echo of humanity he had long since left behind. That haphazard smile laced itself across the face of his devil. Remus lay there, suspended between savagery and civility, staring at the pool of their blood running down to the gutter in tiny rivulets. He saw Orien's face, say the blood flowing from his nose, say the angle at which his arm was twisted. Somehow, he managed to get up, and stagger a few paces. Then bending down he threw up, threw up shamelessly and indefinitely until his mind realized he couldn't move, but it was as if he couldn't see anything, his mind was covered in a haze of madness and blood. He lay there, beyond any certainty until a strong pair of hands pulled him up. 

----

Remus was a bloody heaving mess, his chest rising and falling with breaths more mechanical than life sustaining. Sirius ran, half-dragging, half-carrying him, Vix at his side. Orien lay winded on the ground and made no attempt to stop them. Luckily, for Sirius had no idea of how much longer they could have continued, 218 Ho Chi Mien was close at hand. Vix threw open the door as he shuffled in, staggering from under Remus's bulk. They side stepped a man passed out of the cement stairs and finally made it over to Apartment 2A. 

Sirius heard the door slam shut and the dead bolt slide into place as he eased Remus down on the floor. His friend lay in a stage of semi-consciousness, his face twisted into an expression of intense agony. Biting his lip to keep from crying out, Remus titled his head urgently towards the penknife still protruding from his blood stained shoulder. Sirius moved his hand to pull it out, but a hand held him still. "Don't," said Vix, her face still shocked and revolted though she was trying to do he best to hide it. "It's holding the blood in, if you take it out, he'll loose even more." 

Sirius nodded, but at his assent, Remus grew even paler. "It's silver," he managed to croak out before his words dissolved into a moan of pain. In one fluid motion, Sirius had the knife out. But with it came a torrent of blood. Sirius threw the knife across the room and almost considered casting a spell to staunch the bleeding, until he realized Vix was standing right over his shoulder. 

"Why did you do that?" Vix spat in downright amazement. 

Sirius was past the point of caring, "It's silver." 

Vix looked as if she wanted to say more but she simply shook her head. "We're going to have to call for help." 

"No," said Sirius firmly. Calling for help was the worst thing Vix could do now, after just being displayed on the news as a murder suspect. And beyond all that, he couldn't let one of the Muggle hospitals get a hold of a sample of Remus's blood. 

"What do you mean, no?" Vix exploded. "He could die!" 

"I'm alright," said Remus hoarsely, trying in vain to sit up. The exertion caused his would to bleed faster. 

"Stop tying to be noble, you idiot!" Sirius yelled, pushing him back down. 

Vix laughed harshly, "That's going to do a whole lot of help!" 

Sirius felt the anger course through him, flare to a peak, fizzle, and die. Vix had never see his eyes look so empty, so haunted. "I'm sorry," he whispered, turning for the briefest second to the window, where the moon reflected, repercussioned, and repeated itself all over the sea. Vix's snap brought nothing more than a wistful smile to his face, the smile a reflection on a life that could have been his, fourteen years ago. 

"It's alright," Vix's silky tones bringing him out of his reverie, or in actuality deepening it, every word, every movement, every breath reminiscent of her. 

"How old are you?" Sirius said abruptly, suddenly seeing how painfully young, how fragile she looked in the gentle gauze of moonlight. 

"Your friend is bleeding on the floor," she replied, without dropping her gaze. It was times like these that made him so acutely aware of how inaccurate the term "Muggle" was. 

Without dropping her gaze, Vix knelt down beside Remus, who instantly gave a low growl. Sirius glanced down sharply and the cause of the problem hit him square in the face. "Take your necklace off, Vix," he said, watching as the silver chain dangled precariously in front of his friend. 

Giving him a curious look, Vix tucked the chain into her uniform and bent down to examine Remus. The ragged ear, maze of bruises, and bloody shoulder blazed out at her so painfully she almost felt like they were her own wounds. "He needs help, Padfoot." 

"Whimsy," Remus croaked hoarsely. "He got us into this…" he trailed off lost in a dream-state of pain. 

Vix stared piercingly at Sirius, as if daring him to agree. Despite his better instincts, Sirius had to relent. He was no use without a wand, and Remus was in no condition to heal himself. "I'll get him." 

Vix's dark eyes suddenly registered a look of betrayal and she dropped her head, seemingly intrigued with Remus's injuries. Sirius took a step towards the door, and then turned back to Vix, "Don't touch his blood." 

She jerked her head up and met his worried stare with raw ferocity, "What is going on?" 

An impulse hit Sirius, and a small smile graced his haunted face, "My name is Sirius Black." 

Vix stared back at him and for the briefest of instants, the haunted look was reflected in her own eyes, "I'm nineteen." 

----

It was midnight and Whimsy was still at his desk. Sirius didn't ask why, he didn't care. The carpet gave a soft snore as he apperated in the immaculate white room. Whimsy didn't look remotely disconcerted as he sipped a glass of tomato juice. "Yes?" 

"You're coming with me," Sirius growled, stepping threateningly towards the desk. 

Whimsy licked the tomato juice off of his lips, "And why should I?" 

For once, Sirius was glad of his reputation, "I'm Sirius Black." 

"Which is precisely why any rational person wouldn't follow," Whimsy said patronizingly. 

"Damn you!" Sirius yelled. 

Whimsy raised an eyebrow, "Extraordinarily persuasive, Mr. Black." 

"Remus is going to die," Sirius bellowed, knocking half of the carefully framed photographs off of Whimsy's desk with one swipe of his hand. Their occupants immediately let out a cry of distress, and one woman started yelling bloody murder. 

"Remus?" Whimsy took a deep breath, the most subtle of smiles tracing its way across his face. "Remus… why didn't you say so?" 

----

"I'm a monster." 

Vix looked in surprise to Remus, lying in a heap at her feet. His breathing was shallow, forced and his eyes vacant. "Of course you're not," she said out of habit, but the image of a broken Orien ran across her mind's eye. _What the hell am I doing…_

He gave a racking cough, "You're nineteen, you shouldn't be here…" 

__

How the hell would he know? Vix bit back the barbed retort, "How old are you?" 

"Thirty-five," he said weakly. "I could be your father." 

"Promiscuous sixteen year old," she sighed, staring up towards the window. He didn't look thirty-five, his light brown hair was already streaked with the beginnings of gray, but it was his eyes, those intense gray eyes that seemed so much older. 

He laughed… weakly. "Not quite, Sirius maybe." 

Vix recognized the name, "You mean Padfoot?" 

"Yes," he nodded, "Padfoot." A breather and then Remus started again, "Did… I… kill him?" 

Vix tore her eyes away from the window and back to her ward. "No. He hurt you more than you hurt him." _And I've hurt him more still…_

"My devil."

"What?" 

"He called himself my devil," Remus breathed. 

Vix tried to laugh dismissivly, but it wouldn't come. "Orien's a sick bastard," she replied instead. 

He turned his intense gray eyes to her own, "So am I. So am I." 

"No you're not," she replied, shaking her head. 

"How?" he said, his face as impassive as Orien's own. 

"You saved Isaac," she replied. _And me… _"You just lost control." 

"I nearly killed him," the Brit closed his eyes. "I would have killed him." 

"He would have killed you," Vix said, knowing the truth in her words and hating every ounce of it. 

"I could kill you now," he said, his face a blank page. 

"But you won't," she replied softly. 

Remus looked up at her once again, "How do you know?" 

"I trust my intuition," she said, leaning closer. "It's never been wrong." 

He gave a long suffering smile. "Many have called me a mistake." 

"And I'm not," she replied, lightly touching his light brown hair. "It tells me that you're alright, even if you do like Silence of the Lambs." 

"One day the wolf will lay down with the sheep," he said absently. 

"I think it was a lion," Vix replied, shaking her head slowly. "But us sheep gotta stick together, hmmm?" 

"Baaaa," Remus said weakly. "At least that's what Sirius would say." 

Vix looked down, "And what would you say?" 

He stared straight up into her coffee-brown eyes, "Yes."


	9. King's Pawn

****

CHINA DOLL IX-- KING'S PAWN

__

"Sikes... freed one arm, and grasped his pistol. The certainty of immediate detection if he fired, flashed across his mind even in the midst of his fury; and he beat it twice with all the force he could summon, upon the upturned face that almost touched his own. 

She staggered and fell; nearly blinded with the blood that rained down from a deep gash in her forehead; but raising herself, with difficulty on her knees, drew from her bosom a white handkerchief... and holding it up in her folded hands, as high towards Heaven as her feeble strength would allow, breathed one prayer for mercy to her maker. 

It was a ghastly figure to look upon. The murderer staggering backward to the wall, and shutting out the sight with his hand, seized a heavy club and struck her down." 

--Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

They apperated in the hallway. Sirius could hear his heart beat wildly as he flung open the door. His conscience was still on edge, his intuition blaring to him that in introducing Jonathan Whimsy, he was letting a demon loose. Jonathan Whimsy strode quietly into Apartment 2A. Vix glanced up briefly and then stepped aside, her face burning in ill-concealed fury. Remus looked even more ill in the moonlight, his face giving off a feverish glow. Whimsy crossed the room purposefully and knelt down by his side, a wicked smile stretched across his face. He bent down, staring at the ripped ear, at the cuts and bruises, the finger marks across his neck, and at the bloody shoulder.

"Well?" Vix snapped, before Sirius could stop her. 

Whimsy didn't look the least surprised to see her. "Miss Su," he sleeked, giving his best mock-courteous smile. 

"Mr. Whimsy?" she raised an eyebrow, open hostility on her face. 

"I thought you might like to know," he gave her an appraising look. "It was I who contacted the police about your involvement in the Seiji homicide. Just a little... retribution... for some deeds of your brother." 

Vix's face darkened, and she took a step forward, "Damn you!" 

Whimsy's smile only widened at the barb,"I've been hearing that allot lately." Turning back to Remus his eyebrows knitted in concentration, "His shoulder's burnt. What burnt him?" 

"Nothing," Vix replied before Sirius could fabricate a plausible explanation. "He was in a fist fight." 

"What happened to his shoulder?" Whimsy turned this time to Sirius, sensing intutivly that something was being kept from him.

Vix spoke up; "He was stabbed." 

Whimsy's face narrowed in concentration. "Can I see the knife?" 

Vix picked the penknife up from the floor and handed it, none to gently, to Whimsy. Sirius could see the cogs turning in the old man's head, feel the facts all be placed systematically in line, saw the smile spread across his face as he reached the inevitable conclusion. He knew. God damn, he knew. 

"He has a few broken ribs, cuts, bruises, espically around the neck. Half of his ear is ripped off, which I cannot repair. And of course, the burn." Still smiling to himself, Whimsy reached inside the pocket of his coat. Even in mid-July, he needed the thick layer of wool. Sirius felt his heart sink as Whimsy pulled out his wand. There went their cover; here was when the animonity would end and the questions begin. Within two hours they would be on national TV… 

Vix's eyes narrowed in suspicion, though he would rather deal with her doubts than Remus's corpse. "Curio," Whimsy murmered, as the bruises began to contract in on themselves and then dissapear with faint pops. The cuts however were not as cooperative and more than one of them gave a little yowl before Whimsy poked it closed. When he finally reached the shoulder, Whimsy was biting his lip in concentration. Slowly, manically, as if this was the only thing that mattered to him in the world, Whimsy began to rotate the wand in tiny circles over Remus's inflamed shoulder. "Escapius," at his word, a small thin column of smoke began to rise from the wound, rise and fill their lungs with its sickly sweet stench. Sirius had smelled this only one time before, thirteen years ago on that fateful Halloween night. The night when he had found James's house burnt to the ground. Sirius dissolved into a fit of coughing as the smell of burnt flesh filled his nostrils. Raising his eyebrow slightly at Sirius's reaction, Whimsy spoke the fateful word: "Envirate." 

Remus opened his eyes. 

"Holy shit," Vix murmured in outright shock. 

Whimsy got up, never taking his gaze from Remus. "Highly advanced acupuncture, Miss Su." 

"Acupuncture my ass," she growled, suddenly turning to Sirius. "What is going on?" 

Sirius glanced from Whimsy still entranced with Moony to Remus, rubbing his shoulder and purposely avoiding Vix's gaze. Vix turned her angry eyes to Sirius, and once again he saw in them something that made him stumble. Once again, after fourteen years, he saw her...

"Its a long story," Remus unconscious mere seconds earlier stood up, catching himself on Whimsy's arm when his legs gave out from under him. 

Vix just gaped, her face turning from confusion to fury in less than a heartbeat. "You lied to me!" 

Sirius collapsed in a ratty wicker chair, his face in his hands. "You wouldn't have believed it," he said, his voice muffled by his fingers, his nostrils filled with the stench of his own sweat. 

Vix bit her lip in anger; "You didn't even try me!" 

"What if--" Sirius began, jerking his head up. "What if I told you that everything you read in those damn books were real? The psyches, the vampires, the dementors..." he trailed off afraid his voice would betray the emotion he was feeling. "I was never any good at this sort of discussion..." Sirius turned to Remus. "I always left that to you, or James. Oh God, James..." 

Only once before had Remus ever seen Sirius cry. 

"Who the hell is James?" Vix screamed, cornering Sirius. "What the hell are you talking about?" 

"I believe what you're seeing is called remorse, Miss Su," Whimsy said with a slick self-satisfied smile on his face. 

"Shut up," Remus yelled, shutting his mind against the onslaught of fury and pent up emotion. "You don't know what you're talking about. None of them do." 

"Happy Halloween," Sirius muttered to someone thirteen years dead and beyond his reach. "That's the last thing he ever said to me, Remus. Happy fucking Halloween." 

"What?" Vix turned to Remus sensing the tension in the air, her voice a not rising above a mere whisper. 

"I haven't asked you why your brother is a murderer, or why your father smuggles drugs," Remus said softly, gazing into her dark eyes. "And I can't tell you this, I have to let the dead rest in peace. You'll have to trust me that it's not personal. You have to trust me." He extended his hand. 

Vix stared back at his their gazes locked and melded into one continuous motion, her anxiety and confusion mixing with his longing and fear. The mutual sorrow finding its counterpart on the other's shore, and with that recognition the two ships in the night raised their lanterns and heralded a greeting. It wasn't much, those fragile seconds of eye contact where not even a word was exchanged, but it was a beginning. Somewhere, sometime, somehow it was said that anything important happened in the mere passage of a heartbeat. Hestitatly, palms trembling, Vix reached out and grabbed his hand. It was the first time he had seen her honestly smile. 

----

When Nsia stepped out of the prowler, Orien was already sitting up. "Damn him," he growled, rubbing his broken face with his bloody hand. Nsia made no reply except to pull a Kleenex out of the pocket of her skirt. Orien looked at it distastefully but let her try to clean off his face. "He's going to die." 

"You as good as killed him," Nsia replied quietly remembering the fingers around the neck, the ripped bloody ear. _You would have killed him. _

Orien turned to her, a sick smile of triumph spreading across his face. "Their landlady ratted, she owed father a favor. 218 Ho Chi Mien. Apartment 2A. Vix will be there." 

"She's all you think about," Nsia hissed softly, stroking his bloody hair. 

"She killed Sho Seiji," Orien whispered. "She betrayed us." 

"Betrayed you," Nsia answered quickly. 

"Us," Orien replied, his words hasty and fevered. "I am you. You are me, we are one. You would never betray me Nsia, never. You're mine, forever, and ever and ever and ever..." his voice trailed of as he began to repeat the nonsense to himself. 

Trying in vain to pin it on drugs, the fight, anything. Nsia looked in growing horror as Orien curled up in her lap. She began to stroke his hair soothingly as he repeated "ever" over and over, forever and always, drawing her deeper into his web of insanity and possession. "Orien," Nsia said quietly, trying to keep all trace of fear out of her voice. "Orien..." 

He leapt up, the look of infantile excitement on his face like that of a small child. "I'm going for father. Go to her Nsia, go now and tell Vix to stay. Then I'll come and we'll blow them all to dust." 

Nsia jerked her head up abruptly, trying to make sense out of his incoherent musings. "What?" 

"You'll get her to stay in one place. Reassure her; tell her I'm coming to make amends. Then she'll die, I'll come and kill her." he said it all with a huge smile on his face, making the prospect even more unnerving. 

"No I'm won't," Nsia spat, backing away. Let Orien do what he wanted, as long as she could watch his mindless violence from a distance. 

"Yes you will," he said, the puerile grin fading. 

Nsia felt her mind reel with the prospect of what he was asking her to do, "No I'm not. Ask me to do anything else, not this." 

Orien took a threatening step forward his pupils dilating, and in one lithe motion he caught her by the chin and looking once towards the empty street dragged her into the shadows not illuminated by the flickering grace of the moon, away from the electric musings of the streetlamps. Not relaxing a single tense muscle, he jerked her so their gazes were locked, the panic glaring from the whites of her eyes. "Yes you will, Nsia." 

Trying to breathe against his savage stranglehold she gritted her teeth, "There's only one way you can make me do this." 

His hand tightening around her neck he gave a small smile, "I know." His anger burning like liquid metal against her skin he let her go, the punch connecting with her bruised jaw as she crumpled to the pavement. Then in and instant, he was gone, in the prowler and out of sight. He wouldn't go for Naoto; she knew that for sure. He'd drive around aimlessly and then decide to go do Vix in himself. Her next news story would be the murder of three British citizens in the ghettos of Hong Kong. There would be an uproar, an international crisis, as every force in Hong Kong would try to twist the incident for their own political gain. They'd need a scapegoat, someone innocent would get blamed, or maybe not, maybe for once they'd pick the right killers. Maybe they'd pick Orien; maybe they'd pick her. 

Once again she saw the Brit's ear in his mouth, the blood dribbling down his chin like spaghetti sauce, blood now smeared across her own chest. She saw him two months ago, alert, sane and very much alive, and she saw him two minutes previous his face vacant and infantile. Did he know what he was doing? Did any of them? And then in her ears, she heard that blood-wrenching howl. 

----

"Vix?" 

As she opened the door, Vix found herself faced with the last person she expected to see, "Nsia Mbambe?" 

"He's coming, Vix." Nsia stood, her face barely highlighted by the pale moonlight filtering in through the apartment's window. 

"What?" Vix looked up at her in shocked confusion. 

"Orien," Nsia said the urgency in her voice bit with an undercurrent of fear. "He's coming for you. All of you. Go now." 

"Dissapperate," the word meant nothing to Vix as it issued from Whimsy's lips. 

Once again Remus held out his arm. "Hold onto me, Vix." 

"What?" she blinked at the absurdity of his request, but it was Nsia who pushed her forwards. 

"Do it," she whispered as Vix wrapped her arms around Remus's waist. 

"Thank you," she murmured to Nsia, feeling a mixture of confusion and embarrassment. 

Nsia gave her the tinest of smiles, but when she spoke it was not without a touch of bitterness, "Just go." 

Then the world dissolved. 

----

When Orien got there, Nsia was waiting. 

He slammed the door with a crash. Nsia didn't move, her eyes focused on the dead blot as it slid into place. Locking them in together. Forever. "Where are they?" 

"Gone." Nsia looked up to him and in the silver moonlight he could see the paths of tears down her face. He stared at her, his shock slowly evolving into comprehension. He took a step towards her; his black eyes focused on her own. Another step. Another. Another. And still, she made no struggle, no noise. He was so close she could hear the rasping of his breath, feel the beating of his heart, so close she could feel his body heat radiate towards her as it had done on so many occasions previous. Radiate towards her and engulf her struggling soul. "I love you," she whispered as he began the shower of blows. Whispered all through the blows until she could whisper no more. 

----

Remus felt the world rearrange itself around him, he blinked and opened his eyes to see where Whimsy had taken them. It was an office, gray and square with none of the sweeping classy contours of Whimsy's. Taking a tenative step forward, Remus breathed a sigh of relief when the carpet didn't squeal. In fact there was an obvious lack of anything magical in the office at all. It was for the most part nondescript, with the characteristic wooden desk and the small white cube that muggles were so fond of, the coputer. The office opened out onto a view of the South China Sea with a high floor-length window. Outside the window, it was now night, the nearly full moon bouncing silver rays off the inky black ocean. But there were no photographs of sultry jazz vocalists in this room, only pictures of an idyllic family, pictures of a little girl-- Vix. 

Su Naoto. 

Though he had never seen the man in his life, the tiny gray-haired figure standing up from behind his desk was unmistakable. Naoto couldn't have been more than four and a half feet tall, but every modicum of his body gave off a stench of power, if not rivaling, then surpassing Whimsy's. "Jonathan," Naoto hissed, taking a step towards the four of them. 

"Naoto," Whimsy asserted, greeting his adversity with a curt nod. Despite their obvious animosty, Remus could sense a feeling of mutual respect branched between the two. 

There was a click and with a growing sense of helplessness, Remus realized that Naoto had pulled a gun. Pulled a gin and pointed it at Vix. "You've corrupted my daughter Whimsy." 

Whimsy gave his condescendingly superior smirk. "I'm afraid you started that process, Naoto." 

"You've convinced her to kill Sho Seiji, thus shun everything her father's been trying to build for her," Naoto said, speaking more to Vix than Whimsy. Then he spat as if the accusing itself dirtied him. But somehow, his tone remained level, the subtle anger underneath covered up with all the skill of a master. 

"Father no--" Vix broke away from Remus, but a snap from Naoto cut her would-be explanation short. 

"Silence!" And then with his face like stone he cocked the safety. "You've killed your pawn Whimsy." 

Grabbing his wand, Remus yelled the first spell that his lips could form. Damn their stupid cover, damn the fact that he had left it behind, damn it all except for the fact that he wouldn't prove useless again. Unlike Hogwarts, he couldn't let this second chance slip away. "Gravatuus!" It was the curse Whimsy had used at Vix's diner 24 hours and 2000 breaths ago. Gravatuus was an illegal Muggle-freezing hex, all but useless in the current situation, but he could only hope it would slow Naoto down enough to...

Naoto wasn't moving. 

Naoto was a muggle. 

"Stupefy," The last thing Remus saw before it all went black was Whimsy's deceptively charming smile.


	10. Transcendence

****

China Doll X—Transcendence

__

transcendence (n)-- 1. to exist above and independent of material experience or the universe 2. To be greater than, as in intensity and power 3. A state of heightened consciousness reached by the psyche upon draining its victim of any human emotion [Et. Lat. transcendere: trans-, trans+scandere, to climb]

-The Annoted Webster's Dictionary for the Wizarding Community

He opened his eyes on a tiny hillock just outside of Hogsmeade. The hot Asian July was now replaced with the bitter cold winter of Southern Scotland. Looking up into the persistently gray sky, Remus felt a chill run up his spine, as the fresh snowflakes fell on him, coating his face and outstretched arms. Sitting up abruptly the tiny wizarding village was just as he remembered it, with its picaresque waddle-and-daub huts and annoyingly narrow streets. Again he shivered, just beginning to aquatint himself with the cold of the crisp December day. Maybe he should have brought something warmer...

It never occurred to him to ask why he was there. 

"Sit down," Remus heard someone snap from behind him. "Look at the sky dammit. Isn't that what we came up here for? Even if there's not a lot to see..." 

Remus didn't even have to turn around to recognize the voice, "James?" 

His voice dripped with blatant sarcasm, "No, Snape you idiot." 

Remus backed away in shocked horror; "You've been dead for thirteen years." 

James sat up, brushing an obstinate piece of hair out of his face. It promptly fell back where it had came from as soon as his hand left his head. "Well my sixteenth birthday was two weeks ago, so if you're right, I died when I was three. Not quite enough time for a fulfilling life, but you get what you--" 

Remus was gaping at him in complete surprise, "Sixteen?" 

Instead of giving to worry James just shook his head, obviously supposing Remus was trying desperately to be funny. "Where've you been Moony? Welcome to 1976." 

Remus felt a chill wash over him at his words, a chill followed by a tidal wave of panic, "I have to see Sirius."

"Convient," James said drolly as a figure apperated behind him with a pop. 

"How did you know--" Remus began, but stopped dead when he saw the figure behind James. It was most definitely Sirius, there was no mistaking his shaggy black mane and haphazard smile, but it was not the Sirius of the past two days, this was the Sirius of eighteen years previous. His face looked younger somehow, its lines not yet defined, his eyes not yet tainted by the twelve years of solitude in Azkaban. 

"Remus wants to talk to you," James said heavily, with mocking pomposity. 

Padfoot gave that lopsided smile that was not serious but rather perfectly Sirius. "Remus always wants to talk. What is it?" 

"I..." his mind failed as he stared around in amazement. And the most bizarre thing of all was that he was beginning to remember. Dug up from the dregs of his memory was some Sunday in December 1976, the Sunday after a big Quiddich match, Gryffindor victory of course. It had been the game when Sirius had knocked Othello Bastion off is his broom and left him clinging to the goal posts. Despite five technical fouls he had gloated about that for weeks. Or will gloat... "This is bizarre," he murmured to himself, holding his head. 

"You want to see bizarre?" Sirius grinned, pointed down to the bottom of the hill, where a tiny figure in black was trudging slowly up the side. "Wormtail wanted to walk." 

James shook his head quietly, "He's afraid he'll splinch himself apparating." 

"Considering he has only half a brain already there's not much to loose," Sirius smirked, but his triumphant smile fell as James glared. "All right, sorry, sorry... Anyway he wanted to walk, and I told himself to make himself useful and carry the butterbeer left over from last night's party." 

"Wormtail?" All color faded from Remus's face as memories the Shrieking Shack, fresh and ripped raw, came back, or forward, to him. "Why is he here?" 

"What?" James blinked, personally offended. "I thought you liked Peter." 

"No, I--" Remus broke off, too confused to venture on. The three sat in silence as Peter stumbled slowly, too slowly, to the crest of the hill. 

"I got the butterbeer," he grinned sheepishly, it was the slightly-self conscious grin the one Remus remembered, a smile he had thought gone forever. Sirius extended a hand wordlessly as Peter pulled a butterbeer out of his robes. It was then Remus knew that something was askew. Peter was holding a gun. Turning to the bewildered James he gave a long low smile. "Bang," he said quietly. And James was lying there on the snow without a sound, his blood gradually spreading itself away from his body, unfolding into crimson wings: a scarlet angel of death. Sirius gave a cry of shock and leapt forward towards Peter, but now he too was dead, and on the snow before Wormtail had even turned. In an instant, Sirius simply faded away, as a soft breeze blew bits of ice over the tiny hollow where his body had lain. Now, it was Remus's turn as Wormtail fixed him straight in the eye, and he watched as Peter's face aged before his eyes, dissolving from the smiling boy he had loved to the paunchy man from the Shrieking Shack. This was the paunchy man that was the reason Harry was his own loco parentis, the paunchy man that was the reason that James was now lying here on the snow, cold as the wind that ruffled his unruly hair. "Damn you," Remus said quietly. "We loved you Peter... why?" 

Peter tilted his head to the side, and a faint grin flashed across his worn face, " I'm your devil," he whispered. Remus caught every word as Peter took a step closer. "And you're my China Doll... I'm breaking you. All of you..." 

He pulled the trigger. 

And then the snow filled deranged nightmare dissolved into a thousand indecipherable pieces. Pieces of a puzzle that did not, could not, would not, fit together now or ever. Yet somehow, beyond the laws of any reason the pieces arranged themselves into a fact. James, Peter, Sirius, 1976, had all been a dream. And this fact led to something new: 

A face. 

Remus opened his eyes, slowly and painfully, feeling every muscle in his face contract in agony and cry out for mercy. He desperately strained his sight onto the darkness, trying to make out a figure. And there she was, bending over him, the whites of her eyes the only thing visible in the entrenching bosom of night. "Vix?" 

"Thank god," she said, leaning back. "I thought you were out for good." 

Remus tried in vain to sit up. At long last sick of being desperately abused, without any discussion of a raise in salary or paid leave, his muscles seemed to be on strike and refusing any orders he put to them. "Damn." 

"What?" Vix gave him a sharp look. "Right back at you, prig." 

"No," he growled, as his arm let out a whiplash of pain. "Not you, I hurt all over." 

"Well of course you do, after that fight," she said with annoying superiority. "Only leave off complaining about it till we find a way out of this cage." Remus managed to turn his head and look around, and he could see that Vix's description of their predicament was nothing short of the truth. They were imprisoned in a metal cage no more than six feet long in either direction. He reached out to grab one of the bars and then jerked his hand away in surprise, suppressing the cry of pain ad he tried to hide the telltale line of blisters. The cage was silver. "There's no door," he heard Vix saying as he painfully jerked his mind back to some semblance of attention. "No way in or out. I don't know how Whimsy got us in here, but we aren't escaping anytime soon." 

"Where's Sirius?" Remus said as his eyes began to acquaint themselves to the darkness. 

"Not here," she said bitterly, leaning back against the bars. "Probably waiting to rescue us at the last possible moment." 

"He'd wait that long, just to be a prig," Remus joked uncharacteristically. A silver cage, a dream about Peter, Whimsy's elaborate lies, what did it all mean? 

The soft thud of hobnailed boots alerted them that the answer was soon in coming. "Lumos," Jonathan Whimsy whispered as a faint ball of light appeared on the end of his wand, sketching and outlining the contours of his face bizarrely, in hectic stoicism, making his smiling visage even more threatening than it would have been unseen in the impenetrable dark. 

"You lied to me," Remus said quietly, unable to stop his conscience from speaking, 

Whimsy's spectral grin only widened, "Yes. Highly amusing at the time." 

"This is all some stupid game isn't it?" Vix's voice rose in indignation as she stood up beside Remus. 

Whimsy's eyes narrowed in the dim wandlight, "It is much much more than you'll ever begin to comprehend, Miss Su." 

"Make me comprehend," she hissed aggressively. 

Whimsy glanced at his watch and a small look of cockiness crept across his face. "Why not? I have time." 

"Time till what?" Vix snapped angrily.

Whimsy clucked his tongue. "Patience Miss Su, all in due time." 

"Start talking," she growled. 

Ignoring her as one would overlook a fussy child, Whimsy turned to Remus. "I told you I lied to you. Lord Voldemort never came to Hong Kong. None of Grindewald's followers survived. The Su Naoto I created was pure fiction." 

"What are you talking about?" Vix said angrily. "Voldemort? Grindewald? I'm sick of this!" 

Whimsy gave her an extremely patronizing stare. "We, my dear, are wizards. You are a muggle, a person with no knowledge of magic and even if they had knowledge no ability to utilize what they might know. Lord Voldemort and Grindewald are two wizards who abused their power and extensive talent and turned to dark magic, your standard run-of-the-mill nefarious villains bent on world domination." 

"You're insane," Vix muttered, a shaky smile spreading across her face. 

"Perhaps," Whimsy sneered, "If you keep telling yourself that we're out of our minds then you'll actually believe it." 

Vix bit her lip in fury, "Remus?" 

He didn't know whether to assent or deny. What he had been fleeing ever since his letter of resignation from Hogwarts had finally caught up with him. Once again he had started the age-old circle of lies and betrayal, the inevitable discovery, the inevitable rejection. Hong Kong wasn't an escape, it was only a travesty. Two thousand miles only changes the latitude, not the longitude of human nature. Human nature... politically incorrect with regards to him, but this wasn't the time or place. He owed it to Vix, he owed it to himself to stop the constant lies. A plane ticket couldn't accomplish it, only he could do that. Only he could start now. "How do you think he healed me," Remus said, hating himself for every word. "Why do you think you had never seen a bird like Buckbeak before? Why do you think I had all those books?" He paused and then began to answer his own rhetorical questions. "Because its true." 

"You said you trusted me." Vix stared at him, the anger and rage and betrayal he had seen so many times before on so many faces printed into her own features. She bit her lip and for the briefest of seconds it looked at if she was going to say something more, but she turned away. Remus felt his heart skip a few beats and then lull, fear seeping in as his second chance had slipped trough his fingers. Whimsy leaned towards Remus, leaned so close that his breath rasped against the deadly silver bars of the cage. 

"Since our friend knows everything she needs to, I have a few questions to ask you." 

Remus approached the bars nervously, hating Whimsy with every ounce of his being. When he spoke, his voice was a light growl, "You haven't answered all." 

Whimsy inhaled deeply, closing his eyes, and Remus suddenly felt as if someone was wrenching at something deep down in his gut. Something he couldn't afford to loose. Whimsy gradually opened his eyes and licked his lips a look a supreme bliss on his face. "I played a game once involving two players when one player asks a question, which the second answers truthfully. Then they switch places and the second asks the first." 

Remus glanced over his shoulder to where the furious Vix still lurked. An image came to him, an image of some tang, some Silence of the Lambs, and some pancakes came to his mind. It had been a much lighter morning, than this darkest of nights. "I played that once too." 

Whimsy's unearthly smile broadened, "What's your name?" 

"Remus Joaquin Lupin. What's your name?" 

Whimsy raised a white eyebrow, "My first or my second?" 

Throwing away all frayed remnants of logic, Remus leaned forward. "Both." 

"Richard Thrombus Brighton and Jonathan Alberic Whimsy, though I haven't been known as Brighton since 1842." Whimsy's face seemed even more sinister in the flickering wandlight. "How do you know Sirius Black?" 

Remus took a deep sigh, "We went to Hogwarts together, we were friends." 

Whimsy smiled thinly, "Good friends?" 

Remus shrugged non-committaly. Where was Sirius, he hoped to god he was safe. "1842?" 

Whimsy didn't seem the least bit overbalanced. "I was drafted into Her Majesty's Navy when I was seventeen. That was 1836. By 1842 I was the second commander of Her Majesty's ship the Lottery, but I got... sidetracked on Hong Kong during the Opium Wars." He smiled, well aware and well pleased that he had raised more questions than he had answered. "My turn. Why are you here in Hong Kong?" 

Remus dropped his head in his hands, suddenly trying to decide how much to reveal. "It was the only flight for under seventy pounds. I had resigned from my job, I just had to get away, The travel agency was having a sale on flights to Asia and here I am." 

Whimsy nodded, his eyes approving, "Your turn." 

"No, mine," turning around, Remus saw Vix stand up and walk slowly to his side of the cage, walk so that she was level with Whimsy, her face pressing into the bars, "What's your game?" 

He gave a low chuckle, "Do you really want to know?" 

"I'm asking," she hissed menacingly. 

"Very well," Whimsy smirked, raising his hands in mock surrender. "Very well. My game is transcendence." 

"Come again?" Vix said, her knuckles turning white from gripping the bars of the cage. 

"Transcendence," Whimsy replied, hissing the word through his teeth like a cold wind. "Enlightenment. Something beyond your... juvenile understanding of the world. As your friend Mr. Lupin may have told you, I wanted him to kill your father. I do not care less whether or not Su Naoto lives or dies, to me he is just a petty crook. But I knew enough of Mr. Lupin then to know it would seen him into emotional and moral turmoil. I killed Sho Seiji because I knew I could pin it on you. And that would send Mr. Lupin off the brink." 

"What?" As Vix's eyes fell deeper into confusion, Remus's filled with slowly growing comprehension. 

"For years I had to be content with dregs, feeding off the homeless and weak that no one would miss. Most of them were already so far gone that they only gave me enough for a midnight snack. And then Mr. Lupin entered my life. Your friend leaks emotions like a broken faucet, Miss Su. His empathy is incredible. He projects his sensibilities, I dare say unconsciously, so powerfully that anyone around him with the psychic ability of a golf ball can pick up on what he's feeling. In short, Miss Su, Mr. Lupin is a psyche's dream." 

"You're a psyche," Remus whispered softly. 

"Bingo," Whimsy replied, replied as he ran his tongue over his pure white teeth, over the fangs Remus had never seen before. 

"You're going to feed off me," Remus replied, his mind muddling, mesmerized by that deadly smile. 

"I have been feeding off you, Mr. Lupin, ever since I met you at that trash dump of a diner. I'm feeding off you now, as your discomfort increases, the more you give to me." 

"Damn you," Vix whispered. No two words could have meant more to Remus. By damning Whimsy she threw herself in with him, breaking their silent vendetta. In spite of himself, he smiled. 

Whimsy looked up at Vix with eyes far too old. "I'm immortal Miss Su." 

The silence rang hard in the room. Harder than any taunt of Whimsy's, harder than Vix's fury, it encompassed all and filled the vacuous hole inside eaten away by their acidic fear. Remus felt his heart race as Whimsy fixed him with his own gaze. As the old man inhaled a wave of unbearable cold washed over him. Whimsy reached into his pocket and pulled out a wand. "Wingardium Levosia," he whispered as the curtains raised themselves from their place and rolled back from the gigantic floor-length window. Right now it was showing the sky, just at dusk, caught in an ancient limbo between daylight and its darker fantasies. "The full moon is set to rise at 8:27 tonight. Though we cannot expect complete accuracy the time is currently 8:25 and 32 seconds. You have roughly one and one-half minutes, Mr. Lupin." A thin smile curved its way across Whimsy's ancient face, a smile mocking Remus's look of shock. "You see now don't you?" he whispered across the silver bars. "Now when it's too late." 

He saw, yes by god he saw, and wished now that he could retreat back into his blindness. In less than a minute, he would be powerless against the full moon. Locked in a silver cage, with no Padfoot to hold him back, he knew the undeniable truth. Locked in with Vix Moony would be unable to stop himself. By morning she'd be little more than a pile of blood and flesh. And his remorse, his self-hatred that would follow would be enough to supply Whimsy's twisted quest for transcendence for eternities to come. He could feel the soft touch of moonlight on the back of his neck, feel his body tense, feel his pulse freeze and his muscles lock. His legs gave out from under his and he fell to the ground his head colliding with the snow white carpet. Vix ran forward to catch him but he violently pushed her away. "Remus?" As her concerned voice rose in his ears he could feel them lengthen, feel hid bones move in ways they were not made to, feel every inch of skin crawl and reform. Staring up at her while his vision clouded, he once again say that tantalizing glint of silver dart across his mind like an arrow from hell. 

He opened his mouth forcing his voice to work as the means to work it rapidly dissolved, "Vix..." he groaned hoarsely, "Vix your necklace..." and then he slipped away. 

----

__

Three hours earlier...

When Orien opened his eyes, dusk was already falling. The entire left half of his body was cold, pressed into the hard cement. Blinking steadily, he noticed his hands, rust colored and caked with blood. The soft lines of his palm stained and dyed beyond recognition. 

Then looking up, he saw her. 

She was a ghastly sight to behold, lying in a heap a few feet away, her arms outstretched at odd angles like wings, he hair spread around her like the dark parody of a halo. And through her hair, woven like flowers bits of blood and flesh and bone. She lay in state, the very bride of death as it hovered about the room like an aura. He backed away, the sight too much to bare, though he could neither move his eyes left or right, up or down, so transfixed and held by the brutality. He backed away till he hit the wall, and there was no where else to back to. Her empty vacant eyes mocked him pitilessly, the faint smile on her lips turning the dagger in his gut. In a frenzied panic, he ripped off his blood stained coat, tore at the blood caked into his hands, staining his palms, his veins, his soul. 

He slid against the wall, never lifting his eyes from her limp form. Slid to the door, opened it, and slid across the bridge into night. 

----

Damn. 

Four little letters. 

And it just about summed up Sirius's evening. 

He opened his eyes and sat up, suavely banging his head on the desk that was suddenly on top of where he had been lying. So he decided to try another modus operandi and crawl out form under the desk. 

Out from under the desk and starlight into the comatose body of Su Naoto. Well, not comatose, the technical term was "under the influence of the Gravatuus hex", but comatose worked well in describing his slack jawed unblinking stare, Looking out the floor-length window, Sirius saw it was sunset, he had to have been out for at least a day. Struggling to his feet it occurred to his that Moony was gone. Sirius had about a millisecond to ponder this fact when a not at all comatose hand grabbed his arm. 

He turned. 

Orien smiled. 

Sirius felt the grip on his arm tighten as the fingers pressed into his flesh, break the skin. He watched at the dull red line of blood trickled down his arm and dripped to the gray carpet, staining its drabness with sadism. A gleeful smile spread across Orien's face as he watched the blood with manic fascination. He jerked his hand away as Sirius's fist connected with his jaw. 

Orien growled something in incomprehensible Chinese, his eyes flashing with untapped anger. 

"You don't do that to me," Sirius snapped, as he caught Orien's punch in midswing. 

"I do what I want," he hissed in return, baring his teeth like a dog. 

Sirius blocked his second punch, "Not to me you don't." 

Orien let out a long howl, breaking away from Sirius's web of control, hit him in the side with a well aimed kick. Sirius twisted around and punched him square in the nose doubly glad of all the Socking Snape sessions in their Hogwarts years. Ignoring the blood dripping down his face, Orien circled Sirius like a bird of prey, a predatorial glint in his eye. Then he struck.

Sirius could see what Moony had lost half of his ear, Orien was everywhere at once, punching his cheek while at the same time kicking shins. He grabbed one of Orien's hands as it fought its way towards his stomach, and pulled them both down to the floor. Orien wrenched away and pushed up, gripping Sirius's ribs and digging his thumbs into the soft flesh of his stomach. Letting out a bellow of indignation, Sirius kicked upwards, and Orien let go, rolling across the floor. Using muscles he had long forgotten he had, Sirius scrambled onto the carpet and gripped Orien by the throat. Tightening his thumbs, he leaned forward so that his nose touched Orien's broken and bloody one. "Don't come near me, ever again." 

But Orien didn't hear a word he was saying. He was looking over his captor's shoulder out the window to where the moon was rising over the water, shooting its fine rays of silver across the mirror-pool surface. "I killed Nsia," he said quietly. 

"I killed my best friend," Sirius replied softly, looking at Orien sideways, staring at the unreadable face, carved of stone, its crevices illuminated gently by the sugar-spun light of the moon. 

Then as suddenly as he had quieted, the muscles in Orien's neck tensed and he began to shake uncontrollably. Sirius let go in shock and backed away as Orien spasmed on the carpet, spasmed and let out a long howl of pain. He had heard only one other person scream like that...

A snapshot memory flashed across his psyche, a memory covered with blood and repressed in the twenty-four hours he had held it. Orien, driving the penknife into Remus's shoulder. Remus, crying out in pain, the cuts on Orien's own hand, their blood intermingling and running to the street. 

Their blood intermingling. 

Sirius stared in shocked comprehension to the black wolf lying at his feet as the first rays of the full moon drifted into Naoto's office. The wolf tensed, opening its eyes and focusing its yellow gaze upon Sirius. Ever so gently, it bared its teeth and sent out a long low growl. 

In an instant, he was Padfoot. 

The wolf took a tentative step forward, testing out its new legs and liking what he found, straightened tall, its glinting yellow eyes the only source of light in the room. As tall as Padfoot, Orien was bigger than Moony, almost two hundred pounds of pure muscle and sinew, muscle and sinew Sirius could tell would have no problem ripping him to shreds if it so chose to. And right now, slavering and snapping, Orien looked just about ready to do what twelve years in Azkaban could not. He saw Orien's back legs tense, and tried to swerve away but the wolf was too fast. It sunk its jaws deep into Sirius's right shoulder, twisting its head and savaging the would as the blood began to flow. Growling in pain, Sirius shook him off and leapt on top of the wolf trying to force him towards the ground. Engaged in a indecipherable battle of tooth and claw, the werewolf was unstoppable. Slavering anger and ferocity every second, he was pushed even further by the madness in his blood. Unlike Remus, Orien did not fight his nature. 

Sirius managed to dodge one of Orien's paws and fit his teeth around the other's neck. This didn't have the calming effect it did on Moony, Orien thrashed even harder. Snapping wildly he wrenched away and letting out a long howl of fury, he leapt on Padfoot's flank. Sirius tried to twist away as the claws and teeth broke through his mangy coat of fur, drawing blood. 

With a bark, Sirius bared his teeth in an unmistakable challenge. This was what Orien had been waiting for, giving a yip of pleasure he advanced, paws skidding clumsily on the carpet. Ignoring the blood trickling down his side, Sirius rushed forwards, nipping at Orien's heels, drawing him forward. Growling in frustration Orien advanced after his quarry. Ears flat against his head, Sirius backed away from the ever closer Orien, backed away until he was flat up against the plate glass of Naoto's floor length window. Snapping he let out a long growl of challenge, and then darted forward, sinking his teeth into Orien's leg. The wolf howled in fury, rushing forward to put down his attacker. Sirius leapt clumsily out of the way as Orien raced past in a whirl of slashing fur and force. Two hundred pounds of wolf collided with the plate glass window. 

Twenty stories and ten seconds later, he hit the pavement. 

Sirius transformed and stood up, purposely averting his gaze from the shattered window. He could never say how or why he knew, maybe it was intuition, maybe it was one of those flashes of clairvoyance before confined to the mind of Sibyl Trelawney. But reasons aside, he knew where Remus was. With a quick glance around the ruined room, he disapparated. 

----

"Vix... Vix, your necklace..." She reached her hand instinctively to the silver chain around her neck. Remus tensed below her, his hands clutching wildly at his neck, his eyes rolling back into his head so only the whites shone. 

"Do something!" She screamed to Whimsy, who made now reply except to smile sardonically. 

A low snarl made her turn. Standing at her feet where Remus had been a heartbeat before was a huge gray wolf. It opened its eyes lazily, its clear yellow gaze boring into her soul and striking a chord with the fear that lurked within. 

It was then it all clicked. It all added up, the penknife's burn, the silver cage, the full moon-- it all added up to the unbelievable truth. Remus was a werewolf. Whimsy was going to kill her. She understood the panic in Remus's eyes ten seconds too late, saw the truth once there was no escaping it. She heard his voice echo in her ears..._ Vix, your necklace_. Her necklace was silver. Silver like the bars on this cage, silver like the penknife that had burned Remus from the inside, silver like the padlock on her death. 

The wolf stepped forward, its gaze never wavering from Vix's own. Its ears lowered, flat against its head as it let out a long mournful howl. Her fingers fumbling, her hands drenched with sweat, Vix wrenched furiously at the slender chain around her neck, weeping with relief when it came free in her hand. 

----

Moony opened his eyes, suddenly sensing the undeniable feeling of enclosure. He was no stranger to captivity, but this was different. The bars of this cage repelled him, their aura a poison to his flesh. A flash of movement caught his eye. The natural prey of a werewolf is human flesh. It called to him like nothing had ever called to him before in his life. Moony was about to come into his own. 

He fixed her with his gaze, she was so helpless, his prey, helpless in her tears and lamentations, huddled against the bars that held him captive. She was weak, but she would do. He leapt, mouth slavering in anticipation. Something whipped across his face, driving him back. 

He let out a howl of pain as the silver ate into his flesh.

----

She had never heard any sound in her life like that. No sound could come close to what it did to her, it was the very embodiment of everything she had ever feared and hated and despised. She could not block out the howl of the wolf. 

Heart pounding as the adrenaline carried away her reason on a wave of fear, Vix backed up against the silver bars of the cage. The wolf returned from the shadows of the cage, its hulking form illuminated in the wide pool of moonlight. She could see the thin red line across its silvery muzzle, she knew it could see her. 

The wolf lunged again and she snapped the silver chain forward. It backed away, snarling. 

----

Moony could feel the pain, feel it course through his veins and only serve to fuel his bloodlust further. The pain should be hers; the blood shed his tormentor's. He paced around angrily, not wanting to return for another whiplash, but unable to resist the call of her warm flesh. 

He leapt forward, the silver whipping fast and hitting him once more. This time he didn't cower back and had time to slash at her leg before the silver hit him full in the face and he had to retreat once more into the shadows. 

----

It was a bite, not a scratch that doomed one to becoming a werewolf. Old fossilized memories of folklore were washed back into the forefront of Vix's mind on the tidal wave of adrenaline. She gripped the silver bars of the cage, dangling her necklace between sweaty palms her entire world narrowed to this six by six square. Where would she be in ten minutes? Five? Dead? Or would she stay this way till morning, till the sun came up and Remus returned? Would she be saved from hell? 

As the wolf charged forward again and again, she tried to tell herself that despite her bleeding leg, despite the hot breath of the animal, despite Whimsy's laughs it was all a dream. A nightmare. 

But it wasn't. 

It was living hell.

----

Moony had to get rid of his tormentor, the elusive silver chain that kept him from what was his. Pacing around slowly, the smell of her red blood luring him even closer, its call growing in strength with every beat of his heart. 

He leapt forward and once again his greeting was the harsh slap of the silver chain. But this time he lunged upwards to meet it. He gripped the pendant between his teeth, his ears flattening as the soft skin inside of his mouth turned to fire, scorching away any semblance of taste, leaving only raw nerves. Nerves tuned to nothing except the explosive pain. 

Maddened by the agony, he jerked his head, and was rewarded when the necklace came away in his mouth. 

----

She felt the chain slip through her sweaty fingers. She saw the tiny glint that was her only lifeline fly to the other end of the cage, tossed by the sheer ferocity of the wolf. She heard its triumphant howl, knowing with every beat of her pounding heart what it meant for her. Whimsy would have his transcendence, Remus would have his feast, and she would have her death. She gripped the silver bars of the cage, all defenses broken and breached, tears coursing down her face as the wolf circled closer, its breath rasping harshly. She bit her lip, trying to suppress the inevitable cry of fear, the salty taste of blood mixing with the water from her tears. 

It leapt. She turned her head, shutting her eyes against the wave of agony she knew would be soon in coming. 

"Stupefy!" 

The wolf fell in midleap to the floor, the soft thud of its body the only sound in the entire room. 

Her knees gave out and she fell to the floor of the cage, tears coursing down her face, heart pounding in a rhapsody of unfilled terror. 

----

"You sick bastard," Lowering his wand, Sirius looked in shock to Moony's limp form and Vix's weeping one, enclosed in the cage of silver. 

"I see you found Lupin's wand," Whimsy said, not turning his eyes from the limp form in the silver cage. "Bravo. Very careless of me to leave it out. A very fine stupefaction charm to penetrate the werewolf's hide, though from you I'd expect an Avada Kedrava." 

"I'm not you," Sirius hissed, taking a step towards the old man. 

Whimsy turned ever so slowly and fixed Sirius with his unnerving stare, "You could be." 

Sirius made no reply except to finger Remus's wand, tilting his gaze once again to the silver cage. 

"I'll suppose you'll want to duel," Whimsy said in a slightly bored tone, slowly staggering to his feet. Sirius was suddenly amazed at how old he looked, how old he was. Taking a wrinkled hand, Whimsy pulled out his wand. "We bow." 

Sirius inclined his neck stiffly; his head and heart pounding as the adrenaline washed over him. 

"Crucio!" Sirius doubled over as the full force of the curse hit him the pain coursing through him a rack and thumbscrews and red hot metal all at once. It was the pure untapped essence of pain, numbing his mind and crippling his senses. Then as quickly as it had began, it was over, Whimsy raised his wand and then leveled it for another bout. 

"Expellarimus!" Sirius yelled, Still doubled over from what had hit him; his anger only tripled by what he had experienced. Whimsy's wand flew from his grip and into Sirius's outstretched hand. 

Whimsy smiled sarcastically, "Bravo, Mr. Black. You've won." With a woosh of air, he disappeared. Sirius gazed around wildly, running to the spot where two seconds before Whimsy had stood. "Or have you?" A voice breathed in his ear. Spinning around wildly, Sirius saw Whimsy behind him, but Whimsy was blurry around the edges, like someone had forgotten to focus him completely. As Sirius watched in utter amazement, Whimsy split in to two separate halves and then reformed into one, his figure swirling and melting like something out of a dream. His face fogged and condensed into Orien's, Vix's, Naoto's, Remus's, James's, a million people he knew and thousands he did not. And suddenly it all stopped, Whimsy's figures began to reform as the age melted off them until he was a tall young man withblack hair just at his shoulder in a British Navy Uniform a hundred and fifty years out of commission. The man stepped forward, the sardonic smile still on his face. 

"Who are you?" Sirius breathed, entranced by his all encompassing gaze. He could drown in that gaze. 

The man gave a long low laugh, "I am living, I am dying. I am all that has been and all that will be. I am Lord Grindlewald, I am Lord Voldemort. I am you, I am me. I am completely insane and I know more than you can ever hope to comprehend. I created Jonathan Whimsy, he's nothing but a mask." As if to demonstrate his point, the man's face molded itself back into Whimsy's ancient one, and then in an instant reformed back to his own. He drew a long breath and Sirius felt the all too familiar wave of cold wash over him. 

He knew what he had to do, "Avada Kedrava!" The curse flew towards Whimsy in a flash of green light, flown on the rushing wings of death. Surrounding them both, its blocked out all vision in a blinding flash of light. And then it was all over, the light faded, the air cleared. 

Whimsy smiled, "I'm already dead." 

"Burn him," Sirius turned to see Vix struggle to her feet, tears still streaming down her face as she gripped the bars of the cage for dear life. "He's a psyche, it's what the book said...burn him." 

"Burn me, Sirius," Whimsy said quietly, his eyes flashing something beyond any comprehension, his face elated in the light of death. "BURN ME!" 

"I've won, Whimsy," Sirius said coldly, unable to find any pity for this man who had so tortured two people he held dear. 

"No," the young man shook his head, a sinister gleam on his face. "I won. You're murdering me, your morality lost. I brought you down to my level." 

Sirius shook his head, "I was never up there. I'm no Remus." 

The young man smiled, his too-old eyes gleaming in the half-light of the full moon. "Then we're more alike than you'd think." 

Sirius didn't hesitate, leveling the wand he gazed for one last time into those cold eyes. "Pyrex Infernus," he said as the blaze of orange flame shot out from the tip of Remus's wand. Fueled by magical ferocity, the fire hit Whimsy's outstretched arm and spread in an instant to his torso and all other parts of his body. Eating his uniform, eating his arms, his legs, his face. Whimsy never broke his gaze. He didn't cry out once. 


	11. Daybreak

****

CHINA DOLL XI EPILOGUE—DAYBREAK

The rain poured down in torrents around the tiny group huddled in Victoria Park. All were coated in veils of black and gray as the funeral procession slowly wound itself into the tiny nook of a graveyard, a great deal of "mourners" weeping for joy as Orien found his final resting place. Slowly, the long black coffin was lowered into the soaking earth, adorned with the wilted blooms of late July. Wilted blooms that would never see daylight again. 

Three figures in black stood off to the side, two men and a woman. The woman's face was lost in the depths of her hat as she huddled under an umbrella. Eyes focused only on the grave in front of her, she dropped a single rose on the ground, her last tribute to a brother she had once held all too dear. Turning around she faced her companions, "Let's go, I don't want to hear the sermon." 

Sirius knew it was because she didn't know if she could hold in the tears much longer, but he simply shrugged. "Let's eat. A diner?" 

Vix's trembling smile was the only thing that was visible from beneath the wide brim of her hat. "I've had enough of those." 

"The first restaurant we run into then," Sirius replied, slowly turning away from the tiny service. "How's that sound, Moony?" 

"Fine," he shrugged, eyes purposely focused on Orien's grave. Remus hadn't spoken to Vix since Whimsy's death two days ago. She had not attempted to renew any conversation, leaving Sirius as the awkward bridge between two blocks of ice; that he feared would never melt. 

In a desperate attempt to rally some enthusiasm, he turned to Remus. "I heard from Harry today-- my godson," he added for Vix's benefit. 

"What did he say?" Vix said mechanically, eyes still trailing behind her to the somber funeral. 

"You can read it if you want," Sirius said, reaching into the pocket of his robes, Vix took the well-folded letter in her hands. "Give it to Remus when you're done," Sirius added, trying to ignore it when Vix's hand trembled. 

"I'll just read it aloud," she said coldly, averting his gaze. "Dear Sirius, Thanks for your last letter. The bird was enormous; it could hardly get through my window. Things are the same as usual around here. Dudley's diet isn't going too well. My aunt found him smuggling doughnuts into his room yesterday. They told him they'd have to cut his pocket money is he keeps doing it, so he got really angry and chucked his PlayStation out the window. That's a sort of computer thing you can play games on. But stupid really, now he hasn't even got _Mega-Mutilation Part Three_ to take his mind off things. 

"I'm ok mainly because the Dursley's are terrified you might turn up and turn them all into bats if I ask you to. A weird thing happened this morning, though. My scar hurt again. Last time than happened it was because Voldemort was at Hogwarts. But I don't reckon he can be anywhere near me now, can he? Do you know if curse scars sometimes hurt years afterwards? I'll send this with Hedwig when she gets back, she's off hunting at the moment. Say hello to Buckbeak for me. --Harry

"PS- If you want to contact me, I'll be at my friend Ron Weasley's for the rest of the summer. His dad got us tickets for the Quiddich World Cup!" 

"Quiddich?" Vix looked up from the letter, handing it back to Sirius. "Scars? Do I want to know?" 

"Long story," Sirius shook his head, still smiling. "What it amounts to is I have to go back to England." 

Remus's head instantaneously jerked up from the pavement, "Are you insane!" 

"I have to," Sirius replied quickly, his infallible grin fading. "You heard the letter."

"What about the ministry? Snape?" Remus shook his head in amazement. "The dementors are still looking for you."

"Looking for you?" Vix's voice sounded incredulous from the depths of her hat. 

Sirius hesitated a moment before responding. "I've been in prison for the last twelve years on fifteen counts of first degree murder. I escaped eleven months ago and have been dodging a manhunt ever since." 

Vix pulled off her hat, loosing herself for the second times in the vacant void of his eyes, "And are you?" 

"Am I what?" he said, tucking Harry's letter back into the pocket of his robes. 

"Guilty?" she replied quietly, her white hands tightening on the black lace of her hat. 

Sirius turned away, looking out across the park, out to where a man was being laid into the earth. "Only on two." 

Vix dropped her hat in the mud, and not even bothering to pick it up, walked away. 

----

"Vix!" She spun around as a hand grabbed her arm.

"What do you want, Remus?" she growled, wrenching away vehemently. "Just... don't touch me."

She saw him falter momentarily, saw the look of hurt dance across his face before it was gone replaced by a grim determination. "He's lying, Vix." 

"How do you expect me to believe that," she spat. "Especially coming from you." 

Remus looked at her, his gray eyes intense in the half-light of the cloudy afternoon. "He blames himself for two of the deaths. His best friend, my friend, James and his wife. They were in hiding and killed by Lord Voldemort, a dark wizard. Sirius was framed for betraying them and later framed for the mass murder of thirteen other people. He never killed them." 

"Why are you telling me this?" Vix said, pushing a strand of wet hair out of her face. 

Remus shrugged, averting her gaze. "Because... I owe it to Sirius, he doesn't deserve another person thinking he's guilty." 

Vix peered though the almost blinding rain and laughed. "No, Remus. I don't think you did it for Sirius at all. I think you did it for you. You did it to make yourself feel better after nearly ripping me to shreds. You did it so you could feel noble and aloof, so being apart wouldn't be something shameful. But you're not noble at all, you're selfish, just like the rest of us." 

Remus blinked at her, his hair dripping in wet strands down his face. "So what if I am?" 

"I'll tell you what!" she yelled. "You think you can get out of being human just because of the full moon? Well sorry, compadre, welcome to the real world. You're not perfect, you're not noble, you never will be no matter how hard you try. You're human, you have faults just like everyone else. And sometimes, you screw up, and nothing you do can make it better, agonizing about it won't make it any better, random acts of kindness won't make it any better, nothing will ever make it any better..." 

"Vix," he reached out through the pouring rain to brush her shoulder. 

"Don't touch me!" she yelled, whipping away. "Two night ago, you were trying to kill me. You would have killed me, and now you're trying to console me!" 

"That wasn't me, Vix," he said bitterly. "I can't control myself... I'm not myself." 

"But it's a part of you," she replied. "It's still there." 

"So now I'm the monster under the bed, am I?" he snapped, stepping closer towards her. "Just like that. Who's being selfish now? Don't pretend to analyze me when you're a walking basket case! I'd saved your life, mentioning the necklace!" He ripped down the front of his shirt, exposing twenty trails of angry red blisters. "Look where that got me!" 

"We're all hypocrites!" she yelled at him, running her hand madly through her wet hair. "You, me, Sirius, Orien, Nsia, Whimsy... we're all just basket cases, don't you see? Why did I live through this? Why me, and not Nsia? Not Orien? I'm not any better than they are, it's just luck, it's just fate, it's just..." she broke off, biting her lip, trying to fight back tears. "I trusted you." 

"I trust you," he replied, extending his hand. 

She stared at it then back to his soaked face, his too-old eyes. "I can't, Remus." 

----

"So you're really coming back with me," Sirius said, pushing a persistent strand of hair back into place. 

Remus stared around the airport; busy and bustling with signs of all kinds of life. There were Muggles in black on cell-phones, little children with balloons, roaming aimlessly or rushing through coffee shops and cheap magazine stores. Things, people, emotions, of every color trapped in the most nondescript ugliest building he had ever seen. The gray carpeting and blood red walls clashed horribly, a strain on the senses. "There's nothing to hold me here." 

Sirius shrugged in reply. "Funny, I thought there might," he said, a mischievous smile on his face. 

Remus shrugged as if he couldn't care less, though Sirius knew otherwise, "She hates me." 

"I'm sorry," he replied, looking down at the floor. Once again his attempts to cheer Moony up had backfired. 

Remus looked away, "Nothing you can do about it." 

"Well the plane boards in fifty minutes," Sirius said, handing him a brightly colored ticket. "And we better get a move on, especially if I'm traveling incognito. I have to check Buckbeak too." 

"I can't believe you're shipping the bird again," Remus rolled his eyes, a slight few meters nearer to happy at the change of subject. 

Sirius grinned, "Let's just say he'll be glad to see Hagrid." 

A dusty memory finally dredged itself up to the front of Remus's mind, "Sirius? You said Dumbledore wanted you to come and see me..." 

"Damn!" He snorted, "I almost forgot, here," he reached into his pocket and pulled out a dusty scrap of parchment. "I suppose he could have sent it by owl, but somehow I think he wanted me here." 

Remus took it in his hand and began to unfold slowly at first and then faster as the official looking seal and fancy blue script enchanted to sparkle pompously came into view. _By unanimous vote Remus J. Lupin --Defense Against the Dark Arts-- proclaimed Hogwarts Teacher of Year, dated 1993, signed Albus Dumbledore: Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards_. 

A snort from Sirius brought Remus back to reality, "Who'd have ever thought it... our Moony, teacher of the year." 

But he ceased to listen to Sirius's prattle as a tiny note scrawled at the bottom of the certificate caught his eye: _Don't stay too long in the east, I like my friends close at hand. --Albus_. His friends. Dumbledore had called him a friend. Despite all he had done, despite all the trust he had betrayed, Dumbledore still valued him. And in spite of everything, he smiled. 

"Sirius!" Remus turned as the new voice filtered through the busy airport. "I heard you were leaving..." Vix stood, her face flushed from pushing her way through the crowd, her hair wild and messy. "You too... Remus." 

"Yeah," Sirius replied, sticking his hands in the pocket of his robes. "On the 2:30 flight to London Heathrow. Look I have to go check Buckbeak," he said pointedly, gesturing to an enormous cardboard box a few paces away. "I'll leave you two..." and without finishing his sentence, he was gone, Remus knew on intentionally. 

So this was it, this was his last chance to make amends, to make things, somehow, right. She raised her hand to her mouth, silencing any possible pleas. "So you have the tickets?" 

"Yes." 

Vix reached into her pocket, and somewhat abashed, pushed a sheet of paper into his hands. "This is the deed to one of father's old homes in England, in case you need a place. He won't even notice its gone and I hear Exeter is nice--" She was talking fast, obviously nervous. 

Remus looked at the deed in shock, "I couldn't possibly." 

"Please," Vix looked up at him, for the first time meeting his gaze. "For me." 

"Thank you," he replied, tucking it into his robes. There was a long pause, a pause simple borne of too much emotion to express in simple coherent words. A pause locked in eye contact, in heartbeats, in breaths. A pause of nothing that meant everything to the two of them, a pause where silence reigned and everything was said, a pause of pain, a pause of love, a pause of fear, a pause of life... just breathing, just hoping, just being. 

Vix reached out and grabbed his hand; "My father always used to say that life would be great if it wasn't for other people." 

Remus made not reply, except to tighten his grip on her hand. 

"He's wrong." 

"Vix, I..." 

Once again she raised her finger to her lips, gently shaking her head. "Some things go better left unsaid." None of the passerbys stopped to look, no one realized what had passed, to them it was just another airport goodbye, one out of too many. What sentimental fools young people were these days! Vix brushed that all aside, and taking Remus's hand in her own, she squeezed it tight. "Just live, for yourself Remus... Just live." 

----

12 Rivermeade Road. Not too big, not to small, the very picture of suburban idylls, with its white picket fence and immaculate flower beds. Opening the door with a creak, Remus felt rather like a wolf in sheep's clothing, the beautiful entry hall as foreign to him as Hong Kong had been a week ago. It had only been a week, seven days previous, the word psyche would have meant nothing to him, diner just a place to eat, and Vix a terribly tacky name. That was all changed, and for or better or for worse, he was different. 

The three of them had had a hurried lunch in the Hong Kong Airport and then, they had left, leaving Vix behind, a tiny figure in black standing by the gate window. From the moment they set foot on the plane, Silence of the Lambs was on a constant loop as in-flight movie. He knew now, in more graphic detail than he ever cared to experience, why Vix had cringed when he had mentioned it first five days ago. After nine hours of non-stop Hannibal Lector, he had left Sirius in the Heathrow Airport; Padfoot was heading north towards Hogwarts and Remus pushing south to Exeter. He knew without fail that he would see Padfoot again all too soon for comfort, for comfort usually fled when Sirius knocked on the door. Smiling wistfully to himself, his ragged case slung over his shoulder, he walked into the immaculate kitchen. Its teal and white checked tile made him feel more out of place than the entry hall. This was a house that needed a bustling family, not a lonely bachelor. For he could admit that to himself now, he was lonely. He was always lonely. Maybe one day, someday, that would pass, but for now he only had himself for company. Sighing, he looked to the heavy oak table and lying on it, folded carefully, was a letter marked by the muggle post. Wondering briefly who knew him who would write using the International Postal Service, Remus picked up the letter and slit open the envelope. A single sheet of lined paper fell out, on which was scrawled in loopy hasty writing: 

__

Watch for me. -Vix 


End file.
